Sydney-based social realist painter and muralist Fintan Magee has been burrowed in his studio for the last few months, wondering when he was going to be able to do some figurative painting. The plants have kept him company, and he finds it reassuring to watch them in the winter sun as he keeps himself quarantined from unnecessary contact with others during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Every day while in the lockdown, I photographed and painted two small plants that I had recently repotted and was keeping on my balcony,” he says as he scans over the 32 small still life works he created. It’s been a good exercise, working outside his comfort zone perhaps – not photoshoots of subjects, no imagining of them operating inside a new metaphor.

Now he shares with BSA readers what the process looks like, and picks 9 of his favorite still-lifes as a cross-section print for you to marvel. “The work documents the simple act of keeping the plants alive during the lockdown. Each work took 5-7 hours to make and allowed me to discard building concepts and focus primarily on the painting process making each work a daily meditation, allowing reflection on physical space and the passing of time while marking a day of the crisis.”