“In 1995, a group of us set up Art in Perpetuity Trust (APT) in order to provide studios for around 40 artists – in perpetuity. We’re now in Deptford but previously we were in Greenwich for 20 years – it was idyllic and ramshackle, like the place that time forgot. I still live in the area, and I walk to the studio every morning across the Ha-Penny Footbridge over Deptford Creek.”

© Eamonn McCabe

“My studio is on the second floor, and I have a small balcony overlooking the creek, which is tidal, always changing. I like keeping an eye on it. Ducks, swans, a heron and a kingfisher pass by.”

© Eamonn McCabe

“I usually have a lot of work in progress at any one time – they come in families, individual paintings that relate strongly to each other. I occasionally bring out earlier works, put them up and move them around and see how they inform each other. So there’s not really a linear progression – it’s more like a Möbius strip, a continuum.”

© Eamonn McCabe

“I use a variety of different tools, traditional artists’ brushes, housepainting brushes, sponges…”

© Eamonn McCabe

“…and these sponges on sticks…called diddlers.”

© Eamonn McCabe

“I have a lot of images and objects in this corner of the studio, things I’ve been given or collected over time. The yellow and red bowl was a present from my god-daughter Betty, and the plant is a Christmas Cactus that used to be in my parents’ house in North Wales. After they died I brought it back here to London and it still flowers every year around this time. The pot it’s in was my great-grandmother’s.”

© Eamonn McCabe

“I don’t do a lot of reading in the studio, but I have many of my art books here, for reference, and poetry books, which accumulate. The compression in poetry has parallels with painting, in terms of how language, ideas and feeling relate to each other. I also have my back-copies of Turps Banana here – a journal written by painters about painters. I’ve had a couple of pieces published by them, on artists I admire. ”

© Eamonn McCabe

“I love these blankets, two by the contemporary weaver Eleanor Pritchard who works a block away. The antique Welsh blanket on the left I bought on eBay recently. It is identical to one that my grandmother had when I stayed with her as a child.”

© Eamonn McCabe

“These signs on the door are here to remind me to switch things off each day when I leave…they don’t always work”

© Eamonn McCabe

Acrylic on canvas. 1975 x 2125 x 40 mm. Photo: RA © Access restricted.

Acrylic on canvas. 30 x 40 cm. (Private collection).

Acrylic on canvas. 25 x 30 cm. (Private collection).

Acrylic on canvas. 40 x 50 cm.

Acrylic on canvas. 40 x 50 cm.

Acrylic on canvas. 180 x 171 cm. © Mali Morris. Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum of Wales..

Acrylic on canvas. 168 x 192 cm. Image courtesy of the artist.

Acrylic on paper. 60 x 76 cm. Image courtesy of the artist..