How to Be the Best at Everything
Mixed media on canvas, 2026. Built from two real books I found in a charity shop, one for boys, one for girls, published in 2006 and 2008. The girls’ on teaches her to be pretty. The boys’ one teaches him to conquer the world. I tore them apart and made them the ground this piece stands on. A boy and a girl, the way those books would have them, and down her dress the names of 124 women and girls killed by men in the UK in a single year. The pretty book and the dead women are the first chapter and the last chapter of the same story. Below you’ll see it built from the first torn page to the final name, beginning to end. Giclee fine art prints available in the shop shortly.
The Henry Leaver landscape. Where it started. A tree, a mountain, somebody else's quiet countryside scene, painted over and gessoed out to become the ground for something with a lot more to say.
The boys' side. The decoupage built from the real torn pages of 211 Things a Bright Boy Can Do. How to fight a bull. How to make a citizen's arrest. The whole world, handed to him.
The girls' side. The Girls' Book 2: How to Be the Best at Everything Again, torn and pasted the same way. How to be the best cheerleader. How to get gum out of your hair. Her whole world, handed to her.
Getting the colour right, Practising the washes, finding the exact blue and the exact pink before either one touched the canvas.
The washes down, and the edges thrown on bright and loud over the top. Scrunched kitchen foil, blue on his side, pink on hers. Of course.
The divide. Where his blue meets her pink, and the whole argument of the piece sits in that seam.
Close up of her side, the silver Posca going on, drawing starting to lift out of the noise.
Close up of his side, the same silver Posca, the marks finding their shape.
The full blue side now. Pages, wash, splatter and silver, every layer at once.
The first sketch. Working the boy and the girl out on paper before they reached the canvas. She's in a different pose here, still finding who she'd become.
The boy, hand drawn over the top. Mid stride, going somewhere.
The girl, hand drawn over the top. Still, turned, holding a flower.
The two of them together, face to face. The whole piece in one look.
The full canvas with the two books that started it, sat in front, before the final layer.
The finished left side. His pages, the blue, the silver, all of it settled into him.
Closer. Every line of red on her dress is a name. 124 women and girls killed by men in the UK in 2022. She wears them.
The finished right side. Her dress filled in red, and close up, the red spells out names.
How to Be the Best at Everything. Finished, beginning to end.