Following the success of ‘Garden of Dreams’, I really wanted to do something bigger and more substantial with the same subject. The surreal ambience of the topiary garden put me in mind of the strange world of Lewis Carroll, so I have attempted to create a piece which can be read on two different levels. Taken at face value, we see a very genteel, very English garden party, complete with afternoon tea and croquet, set at any time between about 1930 and the present day. If you choose to, however, you may see Alice, the Mad Hatter, the Dormouse – and the March Hare - at their tea party, with the King and Queen of Hearts and the gardener waiting in the wings for the next chapter.

Just as I was about to begin the painting on a square canvas, I came across a lovely old oval mirror in a charity shop. Hmm... Lewis Carroll... looking glass. Somehow everything just clicked; I bought it for the frame, removed the mirror, renovated the hardwood frame and recomposed the image to fit.