Collection of 45 Park Lane - Dorchester Collection, London

"In the early nineties I was renting a studio in a listed building in the old Jewish quarter of Whitechapel (41 New Road) at the time. My ‘garret phase’. I used to paint on the walls there when I had no canvas.

I was interested in the portraits of Reynolds and Gainsborough, as well as Velasquez (hence the title) . Compositionally there are a few inspirations. The right figure (my friend Ged) is based on a pose by Velasquez. I asked Ged and Gary to pose for me in the studio then added the background of Kensington Gardens.

I was looking at 'La Schiavona ('the woman from Dalmatia'), also known as Portrait of a Lady 1510–1512 by Titian and really liked the sculpted head in the lower right corner of the painting. In fact I loved it's unusual composition on general, with the stone taking up sections of the picture surface. I found a relief side portrait in stone in Kensington gardens and used this to try echo Titian's work.

The lighting is deliberately theatrical with the background looking like a possible backdrop. I was interested in this idea of playing with artificial realities. I wanted the poses to be anti narrative even seemingly ‘pointless’ – looking like poses in a Watteau. Why am I here? What am I doing here? Is it to make a statement? Recently I saw a photo of the decadent ‘bright young things’ of the twenties posing in a similar way on a bridge over water and thought how it was similar in feel.

A seagull appears in the lower right of the painting. I liked depicting birds in my work – with their obvious associations of freedom." - Christian Furr