The Holly and the Brassica

Acrylic on canvas · 2026 · 36 × 36 inches

The Holly and the Brassica greets early winter with a little irreverence. Its title borrows the cadence of a traditional Christmas carol, replacing the ivy with the sturdy, faintly comic cabbage family. Dense chartreuse forms turn winter vegetables into ornament, allowing the kitchen garden to masquerade as festive wallpaper. Rather than depicting winter as empty or colourless, the painting finds vitality in what endures: waxy leaves, compact heads, tangled stems, and crops made sweeter by the cold.