"I was very scared and a bit daunted! But to find one's way anywhere one has to find one's
door, just like, Alice; you see. You take too much of one thing and you get too big, then you take too much of another and you get too small. You've got to find your own way into things..."
In 1990 Paula was hired as the first Associate Artist at the National Gallery in London. She was given a studio on the premises and a stipend in exchange for the really difficult task of creating paintings directly related to the Gallery's Collection. Paula solved this little challenge by producing paintings which like most of her work contain pictures within pictures and stories within stories, and in these paintings some of the National Gallery's paintings make appearances. Although Paula's influences usually don't have any discernable connection visually (Disney films, lots and lots of Illustrators, etc) in these paintings Edward Hopper's dramatic lighting can be spotted in most of them. Unlike Hopper's trademark feeling of isolation, Paula's work always has the feel of peeking into a family's home which has a sort of happy clutter, there are little pictures on the walls, dilly dallys lying about each object has it's own little story and the people are not seperate from eachother, instead they always appear to be family somehow, like she's documenting their lives or something. The little girl drawing away in Time, Past and Present has grown up into the sturdy young artist painting in Joseph's Dream. On the fun role reversal happening in that painting Paula says " I wanted to do a girl drawing a man very much, because this role reversal is interesting. She's getting power from doing this you see. And then I went upstairs and I saw Phillippe de Champaigne's picture, which I'd never seen before, and the two things fused in some peculiar manner. That picture is so solid, the angel is so solid,and Saint Joseph is so solid. It's wonderful."
