“I still remember exactly where I was sitting on the floor in the studio when I painted this painting. The character looks a bit like a messed up Mumi troll and a character from Deadwood. The last makes sense since I was watching that show obsessively at that time. Maybe there is a bit of the drunken Calamity Jane in there. Or Trixie. It’s one of the few portraits I have done of a female character. She appears quite sad, but why wouldn’t she be? The title is from the song Big Louise by Scott Walker. I was listening to him quite a lot around that time. It was quite a difficult painting to make and I remember going through one disappointment after another whilst making it. I was quite embarrassed by it, could see it only as a testimony of all my failed attempts and lacking skills, but then I realised that might be a good thing and in fact the strength of the painting. I think it was Hitchcock who said that work is never finished, it’s just abandoned. That’s true I think.”