The Kandinsky Incident. Or the Mug posing as Muse.

There is a precise moment during a UK heatwave when a studio stops being a sanctuary and becomes a very expensive, very wooden kiln. Yesterday, we hit 32°C and at that temperature, the air doesn't move. The wood panels started looking slightly wavy, the paints were drying faster than I can think, and my brain capacity degraded slow-witted houseplant.

I was working on a new 20x20cm panel, operating entirely on stubbornness and sweat. I reached for my coffee and … I stopped. I blinked. I wiped the salt out of my eyes.

The 20x20cm panel was staring back at me. The mug was staring back at me. They were... matching.

For those who don't know my favourite studio mug features Kandinsky’s Cossacks (1910). It's a glorious, chaotic riot of hallucinogenic primary sparks, jarring oranges, and violent blues. It is not my palette. Not even close.

But there I was, half-delirious from the heat, cross-contaminating my subconscious with a souvenir mug. I was beginning to accidentally resurrecting early 20th-century Russian Expressionism on a Tuesday afternoon.

Luckily, the survival instinct kicked in. I took a deep breath, drank the lukewarm coffee, regained my wits, and swiftly staged an intervention on my own panel.

The actual, non-delirious piece is dropping here shortly. Stay tuned. No Cossacks were harmed in the making of this artwork.