Susie Pentelow interviews painter Andy Parkinson about his work.

Parkinson comments: "I am rarely ever aware of planning, even though of course it must be taking place. Each new work comes out of a previous one and there are so many other variations that suggest themselves whilst I am working on one that it never really feels like planning. I am working with very simple systems or patterns, once I have chosen one that interests me for the present then multiple permutations become immediately available. I almost always work in series, and there’s a lot of repetition involved (even though strictly speaking repetition is impossible). … Perhaps an important distinction to make is the one between composition and construction. It seems to me that a system can never really be composed, always constructed. Each individual part has equal emphasis and functions according to the whole. At no time would it be appropriate to give extra emphasis to a particular part. So there’s no composition really going on here, and therefore very limited planning or decision-making."