Kevin QuinnContemporary artist — Irish roots, London life

I have always loved to draw. From the earliest age, if I wasn't playing football, I was probably drawing something — a car, an animal, a house. I wouldn't stop until it was the best version I could make.

I carried that into school but had to drop art as a subject at 14. That was the end of it for many years — until one day I decided I wanted to start again. Since then I've always painted, mainly in oils and acrylics. More recently I've started learning pottery and sculpture, which has led me into 3D mixed media work.

I live in London. A lot of the places I paint are in Ireland — where my family are from and where I feel a deep personal connection. I paint the landscapes I know well, and the places I've visited and felt something in.

Not everything I paint is beautiful. Some of it asks harder questions.

The paintings in the Contemporary section explore ideas — social, political, emotional. Art has always been a way of processing emotion — the things that are hard to articulate, the feelings that sit beneath the surface. It reaches places that words don't always get to.

Whether it's a painting about the housing crisis, the environment, or the internal struggle between darkness and light — the canvas holds it.