In 2018, I made a series of drawn screen prints to commemorate the end of WW1. For reference I used plant portraits by Karl Blossfeldt, 1929, choosing some whose contorted ‘body language’ conveyed some of the angst that people must have felt - feel - when emerging from a state of war: is it safe to come out yet? During lockdown, I was struck by the similarities of living during a pandemic, a war we were fighting with a virus. It felt risky to be out and about. The shops were shut, the streets deserted. People wore masks, avoided eye contact, crossed the road in fear and mistrust: what might those people be carrying? So we battened down the hatches and largely stayed at home. Time felt infinite. Frustratingly my creativity all but dried up, like the desiccated, twisted rosehip of my print. With a heavy heart and hand, I reworked it with inks and fat French knots: now the arms are flailing in covid-infected air. The cracked seed head has sneezed its particles out to regenerate and mutate, far and wide. I decided to capture the energy of this moment, and spawn my own new living thing, spreading far and wide. And that is how The Covid Chronicle was born.