Difference represents a challenge, even a threat to the rational. We recognise symmetry and repetition as reassuring. The intervention of difference, however subtle, questions our previous assumptions. It can be celebrated or removed.

My paintings and drawings are imaginative inventions, very loosely based on photographs and images from butterfly collections and not an attempt to represent any known entomological species. By inventing forms I am able to focus on what the subject signifies and how I can use it as a metaphor.

There are several reasons why I use the iconic image of the butterfly. They are beautiful, but apparently fragile, and they are complex and mysterious. Every one of the known 18,000 species has a unique pattern and colour, but within those identification marks there are subtle differences.

In contemporary design and marketing it has become a cliché, however this overuse surely shows that the creature remains a potent and seductive symbol. When so many species are in danger of extinction from loss of habitat there is poignancy in using the butterfly to represent diversity.