Colour ink and gouache on paper. The very warm colour of Milanese was inspired by a trip the artist Mary Knowland took to visit family in Milan.

Mary Knowland is an artist who has lived and worked in an around Oxford for most of her life. Milanese is one of a series of paintings on display at Derwent House on paper in Mary’s unseeing or ‘Zen like’ style. This process is a more meditative way of connecting to the subject as she is not looking at the work as it progresses. Attention to the subject is unbroken, awareness of how the body moves to create the marks is much greater and the connection to the subject is both calm and deep.