Just a short train ride outside Rome is the ancient town of Ostia Antica, dating back to the 4th Century BC. The old port of Rome, the town was buried in silt as the river changed its path. Digs have gone on since the 1950 – 1970’s but many discoveries are quite recent. Somehow this ongoing discovery gives these ancient places an aliveness.
It is very intact, like Pompeii but here many houses have second or third floors. It is so particular, you walk through streets, shops, warehouses, seeing baths, mosaics and temples. I was feeling quite at a loss as to how I could go about making paintings – which was my intention. But the really strange Mithraeum was the place I worked in, found by Emily and Dan, who I came with. They left me in this place of pagan worship and it was a weird rather creepy place, but I managed two paintings, one facing in and one facing out.