‘Where Time Stood Still’

    "We all have places that hold pieces of our story   …places where time felt slower, softer, or more alive."

Here Is The Story Behind the Painting

Some paintings hold more than colour and shape, they hold time.

“Where Time Stood Still”  began, as many of my commissions do, with a message from a returning client. Someone whose stories I’ve quietly painted over the years. Each time, she has asked me to capture a moment, a memory, a feeling usually woven around a much-loved place.

This time, she wrote to tell me they had recently said goodbye to their family beach hut at Stone Bay in Broadstairs, a spot they had cherished for over 20 years. Their lime green hut had overlooked the tide for decades, witnessing seasons change, children grow, and countless family days unfold by the sea.

Now, after the passage of time, they had decided to pass the hut on to allow another family to create memories of their own there, but before letting go completely, she wanted to preserve the feeling of that place; the calm, the colour, the life and memories there.

Stone Bay is a quiet, tucked-away beach on the Kent coast with golden sand and tall chalk cliffs that catch the soft light. It’s the kind of place that makes you stop and take a breath. As I began working out the composition, I imagined the view not as it looked exactly  but as it felt. That’s often how I approach commissions like this, not as a photographer, but as a memory-keeper. I’m not trying to paint a perfect replica of the scene, but to hold onto the emotion of it.

The beach hut needed to be there, of course lime green, like a little beacon of family history. Around it, I let wildflowers bloom a hallmark of many of my pieces representing both life and resilience, even in quiet moments of letting go.

The colours were soft, almost muted, dream like, the kind of palette that belongs to early spring or late summer: warm earth tones, quiet blues, and the occasional burst of colour in the flowers. I worked slowly, allowing each layer of acrylic to build up.

As I painted, I thought about how landscapes often outlast our moments in them  but how our memories can leave such a vivid imprint. There was something powerful about knowing this scene had witnessed so many chapters of one family’s life. My brushwork was gentle, deliberate, I wanted it to feel like a place someone could return to  even just with their eyes.

The finished painting felt exactly as I had hoped, grounded, peaceful, a little emotional but above all, calm. A still frame of a life well-lived.

The title came naturally. Some places have a way of holding time not in a loud or dramatic way, but in stillness. Stone Bay was one of those places. For this family, it was a kind of sanctuary and now, through paint, it can continue to be one even after the hut has gone. It was an honour to paint it. 

As an artist, these are the moments that matter most to me  when I can use my work to gently hold someone’s story. I don’t take that lightly and while the painting will shortly be with its owner, I’m sharing a little of its journey here as a quiet reminder of how landscapes and memories so often belong together.

If you’ve ever had a place like this  where time seemed to pause for you  you’ll know exactly what I mean.