Over the past decade I have explored five key concepts in my work - depth, light, surface, interval and space. I am very interested in the process by which these intellectual concepts translate to the material form of a painting.
The paintings are organically realised but geometrically conceived. Space is not a given, but rather something created through the painting's evolution. The organic gesture is a progression of thought and defines the space, which is embedded within the structure of the painting.
At the start of each painting I lay tracks, parallel lines which function like the work's DNA and guide the painting process. Using a palimpsestic method, I build up and strip back successive tonal layers, inflecting and adding incident (see example) to the painted surface, while still constrained by the original strands of line. This combination of freedom and control is essential to the meaning and authenticity of each painting.
You could compare the process I use to that of an archaeologist. One stratum is exposed to reveal another below, encouraging the viewer to tease the space apart layer by layer. The viewer can penetrate into an earlier state which retains traces of elements or events which no longer exist , not placed but simply left behind.
Through subsequent adding and removal of the surface the paintings appear bruised, unstable, gritty, seemingly damaged. I am seeking a result where depth and flatness attempt to coexist in the same plane yet question the other's identity - a strange weave of near and far that produces a sense of presence. When you look longer, ambiguity starts to assert itself - this appears so spatial and yet this appears so flat. The result is instability, the slipping of the bounded into the boundless.
I am very interested in minimalism as a concept but do feel I need a structure to hang the idea on. I prefer painting that requires multiple viewings: each time there is a new discovery or hidden detail. I like to watch my audience discover things, have little insights then lose them in the bigger picture. The allure of painting resides in the contemplative gaze as a process of discovery.
I am inspired by the tactility and physicality of paint. Magical things can happen in minutes unlike many other art practices. Painting can and should speak for itself in its own language. Click to view some paintings
