Martin Greenland

You live in the Lake District with great landscapes on your doorstep, yet the subjects of your paintings are largely invented. Why is that?

Largely invented, yes, and until fairly recently almost completely invented. I never set off with the intention of doing this, but it was almost to absorb what I’d seen and then to reinterpret it in a way that means most to me, I suppose. There’s always somewhere in the back of my mind, some place of reference that was probably a starting point, and then I allow the composition to develop.

Let’s take Whitbarrow from Lindale, across Witherslack Bay as an example. What was the element that kickstarted that painting?

With that painting, and quite a number of more recent paintings, there was very much a real landscape as a starting point. I was always interested in what the Lake District might be like if it had clear blue seas and crashing waves, so this painting was a personal indulgence to imagine what that