I started by taking my compact box of paints and boards on the bus from The Borghese Gardens down through Barberini and Piazza Venezia. I was working in the dark, under the church of S Nicola in Carcere, the bases of the Temples that had stood either side can be seen both from underneath and from street level.  The light that I worked by was a few oddly placed light bulbs and tiny chinks of daylight that brought the warmth of the sunny day outside into a cool, buried, silent lower level. I worked for 2 to 3 hour stretches and actually with little disturbance. I would emerge in to the heat of the street and head back to see my paintings in studio.

— Gill Ord