We ask an oil artist to tell us about a piece of art that holds significance for him

On the Natural Origins of Insomnia, oil on linen, 63.5x81cm 

As a still life painter, I regularly visit used goods shops to hunt for objects that I might use as props for paintings. Recently, I found an old, nearly two-foot-high, ceramic doll with a head of real hair and joints made with springs and string. The doll is holding a book called Stars, which was given to me as a child and I still have. 

What initially attracted me was her wide-eyed expression of wonder, but then I saw she might also look as if she were expressing a state of woe. This ambiguity between wonder and woe struck me as illustrative of my personal experience of insomnia, something with which I have been afflicted for my entire adult life. Insomniacs spend a lot of time wondering about what disturbs their sleep. An occasional sleepless night can be explained by some passing anxiety or discomfort, but persistent insomnia leads a person to seek deeper explanations. 
Through many years of this insomnia, I have often thought that the cause is wonder ? almost to the point of stupefaction ? at the fact of existence, the ?Why are we here"? and ?What is this really all about"? When I was a boy, my mother would rail about people who wasted a day with naps. To me, napping ? and by extension sleep itself ? became associated with wastefulness and the misuse of time, and these activities acquired ...