'As a painter and a ‘painterly’ painter, I wanted to see what the iPad could do that painting could do and also what were its limitations. With this medium it is possible to build an image in layers like one would in an oil painting, to produce solidity and density.

These iPad images have been kept simple because I wanted to learn about the medium, I needed to reign myself in rather than be bamboozled by endless options and also to make something that was recognisably by me. I chose a simple ploughed field with a single tree as the subject. A ploughed field is a metaphor for a life’s work.

What came to mind was the restricted view of an enclosed field that was the only glimpse of the outside world the painter Van Gogh had when incarcerated in the asylum of Saint-Rémy. Despite all the obstacles Van Gogh, nevertheless, managed to produce one of the greatest series of landscape paintings in history from this simple motif' Hughie O'Donoghue, March 2021