“This painting explores a certain tension and mood manifest through a girl in profile: the uncomfortable leaning on one arm, the sculpture-like rigidity and the palette of blues, whites and purples”, Unwin says of Girl. “The subject has what might be thought of as particularly girlish attributes, but in this painting I wanted the ‘girlishness’ to become rigid and tense: the high-up ponytail looks almost solid and a strange ‘thing’ rather than something soft and fluffy. Her knitted jumper appears to be a structure both containing her body and stiffly holding it together. She is nobody in particular: more a combination of things seen and felt. I chose to make her in a limited palette as I wanted the painting to focus on what she might be feeling, with the aim of creating a pensive atmosphere. She is not confrontational and I don’t think of her as any kind of ‘character’. I don’t think she is a whole being herself, rather a kind of sculpture of feeling.”