Ashley Davies hopes her new exhibition won’t need too much explanation. The clue is in the show’s title – Without Words – as the artist wants her haunting paintings to speak for themselves.

The walls at the Stables Gallery, at Orleans House, which houses the exhibition carry little in the way of curator’s notes or explanations and Davies believes this stripped-down approach is the best way for people to experience her art.

“I want people to look at my work and have an immediate physical reaction,” she explains.

“I don’t like work that needs a lot of written explanation but people who know me will see some irony in the exhibition’s title.

“The reaction I hate is indifference – I still laugh about when Brian Sewell marched straight through my space at my Royal Academy graduate show!”

Davies has been painting for more than 25 years, with her work often hovering between the figurative and the abstract and she says she is happy to embrace both forms.

“I don’t see the difference between the two in my work,” she adds. “These paintings are figurative but we are not talking photo realism. I have been painting for a number of years and, at times, I have gone down the abstract path but for me it can become bit of a cul-de-sac.

“I know how to make nice arty marks but the work can then become a bit empty. I need to make it hard for myself and, by bringing in figurative elements, I am being more direct about what I am saying.”

The paintings in Without Words feature a number of subjects, sometimes blurred, sometimes bold, including pigeons, churches, locks and abandoned swimming baths that allow Davies to explore personal concerns “The pictures are all of urban spaces,” she says. “Lido Lock Lido is a phobia of mine of deep water and unfathomable spaces. It’s about something you are terrified of but compelled to look at.”

The genesis of Lido, Lock, Lido is charted in a video piece that is accompanied by a classical music score. It was composed and performed by the Galliard Ensemble in collab-oration with Davies, who says music is a vital part of her Without Words ethos.

She adds: “Like so many art forms, music and art are interconnected. Classical music can help people focus on art by taking them to an abstract place where you don’t become too literal about things.

“I am not musical so, when I work with Galliards, I will say: ‘Can you go pompity-pom?’ and I feel a bit daft but we seem to work so well together and have an innate understanding.”

As well as working on her own art, Davies is also a committed teacher working with special needs groups at the Courtauld Institute and the Octagon group at Orleans House.

“It might sound saccharine but, over and above the fun of it, the kids are really talented,” she says.

“Some of them are so unwell but art is a great leveller. You can become a tortured artist locked away in your studio but now, on a bad day, I relax and go into it with the same spirit I see from them.

“I allow my intuitive mark-making to take over, I remember that art is fun and I am lucky. It helps keep me grounded.”

Without Words, Stables Gallery, Orleans House Gallery, Riverside, Twickenham, until October 25, richmond.gov.uk/home/ leisure_ and_culture