ArtLab: The figures in your interior paintings have a dominant presence and command the viewer's attention, whereas outside they are lost and lack authority. How significant is the relationship between figure and setting in your work?

Sarah Jeffries: Well nature, in the end, is more powerful than the human. Interiors are completely controlled by its inhabitant but when individuals are placed in an unspoilt wilderness they are inevitably at the mercy of nature. I'm interested in seeing how the figure can look almost swallowed up by landscape and how the trappings of modern life can look absurd in totally natural environments.