YORK-born artist Paul Wilks has returned home to exhibit some of his latest works. Dal Vero, which is on show at Grays Court, features surreal oil paintings and more than 20 pastels from his Rose Dress series.

The dress is the common thread in a set of studies which explore his model Liticia’s moods when she visited his studio.

Paul first met her at the Royal Academy when she arrived from Brazil. “I had never met some one so attractive in a certain way,” he says. “She was so striking and exotic. And the dress Liticia brought from Brazil is just an amazing piece of material, so I decided to do variations of her wearing that dress.”

But he had to work quickly because Liticia could only hold some of the poses for a few minutes. She would often arrive in different moods and Paul recorded her emotions, using the dress to theme the pictures. Sometimes she seemed a different person, other times sleepy, excited or angry after a bad day, and his works attempt to reflect her changing personality.

Painting Toenails came about because Liticia was in a hurry to get to an audition.

“She asked if she could paint her nails and I said yes of course, let’s see what we can get out of it. I feel that it caught her in her element; a confident young woman who is in control. And being unposed it’s very natural.

“Perception as I see it breaks down into the subjective, which are the paintings, and the objective of the pastels showing the physical side that I take in visually; hence the title of the show which in Italian means ‘from truth.’ “It applies to the pastels which represent a moment in time. As soon as the pose is broken I stop; nothing is added later and it’s a record of what I saw in those 15 minutes.”

On the other hand, Paul says the oil paintings come out of a flow of consciousness or indeed unconsciousness, but still the product of the same brain. And he takes longer over them; never knowing what’s coming next, and that he finds a more stimulating way to work.

“The starting point varies and some lay dormant before I return to them. Then when the original idea has matured into something different, it triggers another input. That is what holds my interest.”

Paul believes perception is surreal – that we don’t see reality as we think we do. The brain is more dynamic and he thinks we live by association, recognising things by what we expect to see because we associate them with other objects.

“Reality is as much about the unconscious that we bring to our surroundings as the surroundings themselves, and that’s what makes our individual reality unique.”

Some view Paul’s work as abstract whereas he sees it as an explanation of the way we get through each day. And he doesn’t worry about labels like surrealist; he even carried business cards which categorised him as a brain surgeon or an inventor, because he says that, to some degree, is what he is.

“Personally I don’t have a problem working in two very different styles. It can present a problem to others who might see it as two different artists’ work, but to me it is my reaction to both the external world and my internal world. They’re both here in the exhibition.”

• Paul Wilks’ Dal Vero exhibition runs until May 31 at Grays Court, Minster Yard between 10am and 6pm