The Museum commissioned this painting as part of an initiative to collect the work of major living artists. This was at a time when it was closely involved with the expanding Port of Felixstowe to record modern methods of cargo handling in order to help explain the continuing importance of sea-trade to Britain, despite the fact that ships are now largely unseen by the general population. Far fewer British people work at sea or in maritime industry than even in the early twentieth century, air travel has replaced ships (except for cruising) and shipping that used to throng and substantially employ major populated port cities like London now docks in often remote mechanized container terminals on the outer rim of motorway systems. One of the qualities in this wide-angle view towards Trinity Terminal is an element of this remoteness and alienation: an unintended result was the disappointment it caused to the Port of Lowestoft, who facilitated it, apparently in the expectation of a more traditonally 'heroic' interpretation of their industry.