Before the Pyramid series was painted in the same year, I had made some smaller works titled ‘45 Amulets’ on handmade paper I had acquired in northern Thailand. They are very small, 15cm x 10cm, and are more like colour studies based on Albers' Interaction of Colour. The colour scheme is brighter and there are a lot of deep yellows (a representation of the colour gold) which could be seen in many temples in Thailand and Cambodia. Throughout my work, colour is always specific and relevant to me and my own experience. They are always from my memories, rather than from photographs or other images. They are memories of colour. I like the concept of memories as they fade in and out, mostly voluntary, fussy, distorted, exaggerated, blurred and sometimes possibly quite heavy.

I called these small works Amulets as I had the idea of creating something small and inexpensive enough to carry around, like those amulets one might buy at a temple in Thailand. I also had The Book of Changes (the Chinese 'I Ching') in mind; everything changes and no two things are quite the same, even if they are repeated. But, of course, the concept of I Ching goes much further than that. The kite shape used in the 'Amulets' paintings gave me an impression of those slim Buddhas displayed in Thai temples. It was something I only noticed sometime after the work was completed.

I tend to paint in multiples, at least two at a time, with repeated shapes and a limited palette, in rotation. Whenever I put one colour down on a specific area in a painting, I wonder what if the same colour is painted at a different location in the next painting? Consequently, I create multiple paintings to discover the effect of placing the same or similar colour in a separate area in various paintings. And I see how they echo with each other.