We have had such positive feedback. Perhaps, in these chaotic times with an ever-changing narrative, the important constants are love, hope and humour. Alex’s zany work delivers these in spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs.

I’ve always loved the quick wit of American humour. As a child, our book shelves were scattered with Dr Seuss, The Addams Family , The Flintstones intermingled with more European influences like Tintin, Asterix, Barbar and Celeste , Arthur, Pom,  Flora, and who could forget the magical mischievous monkey Zephyr: the middle name of our eldest daughter and one that baffled the priest at her christening.

All the joy that I get from this library of memories is “magi-mixed” with my great love for surrealism: Dali, Leonora Carrington, Magritte to Leonor Fini. As a 15 year old, I lunched with Madame Fini, in her house on the banks of the Loire. Fini swept the room adorned and bejewelled in an electric blue kaftan, her hair as restless as Medusa’s and followed by her living river of 28 cats. She encouraged me to her studio to pose for her but all too late as I was swept away less my adulthood arrived too soon. Missed moments of surrealism, I regret.

With the dance of Matisse in his characters, with the storytelling zaniness of Grayson Perry. As observational and satirical as Hogarth with a black wit with as sharp as Morticia and Gomez Addams’ macabre world.  It’s the unpredictable dream world, so often built from fragments of consciousness, events during the day, colliding memories and hopeful predictions. This is Alexander Nolan’s Wonderful World.