This painting began with pirates and ended in gold. It brings together childhood memories of LEGO ships, the story of William Adams, and my love of Japanese Nanban screens. Inspired by Bosch and Bruegel, and painted with traditional Japanese pigments and gold leaf, it is a floating theatre of folly, drifting between East and West.

Marble bust of Socrates Before I turned fully to art, I was trained as a sinologist: a doctor of philosophy of Chinese thought and...