"Colour has a very high symbolic value in my work, in my paintings, and it carries over into these monotypes. The murky violets and purples, take me into interior spaces, because purple, like with painting, has a kind of depressant value. It's dark. It symbolises pain and sadness, but it also symbolises luxury and sumptuousness, I love the ambiguousness of purple."

"The dark greens take me into places of thinking, like mysterious English country manners, landscapes, and places I've seen through the window of my drives, or my journeys."

The red very much gears me towards flesh in the body, which is no surprise. It's a bit cliche to say that, but it really is a beautiful, potent colour to play with, on that level.

"Making monotypes offers a playground to test out new composition ideas, be looser and see how it is to be more abstract. There's a lack of control that's so important with monotype making – you're forced to see what happens. The press decides, the ink decides, the amount of oil that's in the colour decides. The marks don't translate on the plate as they do so naturally in my paintings. So you're really at the mercy of certain limitations – it's really healthy for me to to let go and play."— Laura Footes