The Gathering

The Gathering began with something very human, even though the characters are rabbits.

I love watching what happens when people come together. There is always a little theatre in it — one person talking, another listening, someone quietly observing, someone slightly outside the conversation but still completely part of it. I wanted these three rabbits to feel like individuals caught in one of those moments.

The poppies and exaggerated colour came because I didn’t want the scene to feel naturalistic. I wanted it to have its own world — joyful, a little strange, full of personality and humour. The rabbits are larger than life because, in my mind, they are not really about rabbits at all.

They are about us.

For me, The Gathering is about our instinct to belong, communicate and share space with one another, while still bringing our own very different personalities to the group.

I hope people first respond to the colour and energy, and then begin to recognise something familiar in the relationships between the three figures — perhaps a friendship, a family, or simply the wonderfully complicated way we all gather together.