2010 Artist Statement
The main focus in my current body of work is painting as painting, to explore the picture plane and space in a challenging new way.
The essential concept of painting is the relationship between flatness of the surface and representation of three-dimensional illusion. This has been the case since the cave painters and is being reaffirmed today in abstract painting. An engagement with the physicality and manipulation of pigment is allied with management of pictorial space.
Colour, with all its associations and relationships, requires endless exploration. I want my colours to surprise as if they have never quite been seen before, and yet to seem as if they cannot be imagined any other way.
The ground is an increasingly complex, richly hued and layered painterly surface implying spatial illusion coupled in a weightless composition with an organized figure having perspective and perhaps alluding to perceived imagery. Some ideas for imagery are inspired by the edge patterning in Spanish Romanesque church frescoes, the interlinking knotted devices of anglo-celtic manuscript decoration, and in the way a spiral form is seen in our DNA, the simple plant/animal cell spirogyra and our galaxy.
The size of a painting is always related to the viewer. The work is sometimes large enough to be all engulfing and sometimes small enough to be held as an object. Most often it is the approximate size of a person, the painting and the person are standing in front of each other, looking at each other.
The process of painting itself echoes the metaphor at the core of chaos dynamics, that of (re)iteration. In the figure/ground connection, the elements are bound to each other as a self-contained whole. There are links to the dichotomies of nature/nurture, wild/tame, sacred/profane, harmony and opposition, organic and manufactured. When considering order/chaos or the sacred and profane, the question arises: is the chaos profane or is it the apparent chaos of nature and the universe that is the sacred? Then the profane would be the “order” created by mankind. Both are juxtaposed in opposition and harmony at the same time, not merely co-existing, but supporting and causing the other to make the whole.
I paint to see what it will look like and then to make it look better. My ideal painting is slow, it reveals itself over time and is a vehicle for reflection and contemplation.
The main focus in my current body of work is painting as painting, to explore the picture plane and space in a challenging new way.
The essential concept of painting is the relationship between flatness of the surface and representation of three-dimensional illusion. This has been the case since the cave painters and is being reaffirmed today in abstract painting. An engagement with the physicality and manipulation of pigment is allied with management of pictorial space.
Colour, with all its associations and relationships, requires endless exploration. I want my colours to surprise as if they have never quite been seen before, and yet to seem as if they cannot be imagined any other way.
The ground is an increasingly complex, richly hued and layered painterly surface implying spatial illusion coupled in a weightless composition with an organized figure having perspective and perhaps alluding to perceived imagery. Some ideas for imagery are inspired by the edge patterning in Spanish Romanesque church frescoes, the interlinking knotted devices of anglo-celtic manuscript decoration, and in the way a spiral form is seen in our DNA, the simple plant/animal cell spirogyra and our galaxy.
The size of a painting is always related to the viewer. The work is sometimes large enough to be all engulfing and sometimes small enough to be held as an object. Most often it is the approximate size of a person, the painting and the person are standing in front of each other, looking at each other.
The process of painting itself echoes the metaphor at the core of chaos dynamics, that of (re)iteration. In the figure/ground connection, the elements are bound to each other as a self-contained whole. There are links to the dichotomies of nature/nurture, wild/tame, sacred/profane, harmony and opposition, organic and manufactured. When considering order/chaos or the sacred and profane, the question arises: is the chaos profane or is it the apparent chaos of nature and the universe that is the sacred? Then the profane would be the “order” created by mankind. Both are juxtaposed in opposition and harmony at the same time, not merely co-existing, but supporting and causing the other to make the whole.
I paint to see what it will look like and then to make it look better. My ideal painting is slow, it reveals itself over time and is a vehicle for reflection and contemplation.