I spend a lot of time thinking, ‘what if?’

What if Beatrix Potter didn’t actually like rabbits, or what if Hitler had been a better artist? What if Lisa del Giocondo had not only been painted by Leonardo, but collaborated on his inventions as well; or what if Mondrian could visit a modern-day museum and see the endless consumer items for sale featuring his work? This was the starting point for this collection of drawings; playing with characters that I think I know well, not concerning myself with facts or time or place, but imagining other aspects to their lives, making unlikely connections and giving them human foibles and twenty first century concerns.

Soon I began to look at works of art too… These images and their stories, like the artists who created them, have been a constant in my life since I went to art college. What if I tweaked them a little? What if I made up stories about them? Imagined different scenarios, added captions...?

I discovered that this gave them new purpose, allowing them to live again but in a new context, and possibly for a new audience too. I agree with the artist and philosopher Joseph Kosuth who suggested that art lives by influencing other art, not by just existing as the physical residue of the artist’s ideas. In this way we can collaborate with anyone we wish. These drawings then, are my unlikely collaboration with some of the western world’s greatest artists, writers and philosophers. I hope you enjoy them!