STATEMENT OF WORK

The contradictory and faulty nature of people/ being a person is a source of influence in my work. In how pure, corrupt, trivial or spectacular qualities exist together in a shifting whole thing. I find that painting is connected to the same realities in its material possibilities and limitations.

 The characters in my paintings are influenced by a mixture of: people I walk past in the street, loved ones, internal voices, and societal caricatures.  The figures are often separate but within view of one another and exhibit self awareness in their shape. There is a feeling of both desire and fear of being the subject of observation.

My senses are most attuned when I am traveling through in the city after dark. The surroundings are dramatic and symbolic and become an imaginative space that the paintings exist in. Lampposts or street lights are a regular motif; they offer a substitute guiding light and provide temporary clarity for the figures that walk through them. Often, the motives that I am attracted to suggest a framing of vision, and a shape that could be on the edge of becoming a different one. Sometimes the lamppost or streetlight will shapeshift into the glowing face of a figure, or stretch out into a leaf, or flatten into a vulva shape. 

My painting process is led by improvisation. There are usually many layers and alterations in forming the image. I have faith in working in this way; led by the present moment and immediate reactions to the surface in front of me, where my imagination can be in conversation with the material.