Artist’s Statement

                          

My work originates from an academic interest in and an emotional attachment to the medium of painting. I question the way we look at paintings, in particular the way we are conditioned by artists and the art establishment to accept one interpretation of a particular work of art.

Strip Paintings: The strip paintings were developed from an interrogation of painting conventions and the idea that there was an opportunity for the viewer to see aspects of paintings that had previously been hidden. The practice involves cutting of painting into fine strips and re-presenting these in cross section to construct an alternative version of the original work. The starting painting can be a “found” painting by other artists (often acquired at auctions) or one of my own. The initial premise is the same in both cases, a painting by an “author” is re-presented, it remains the same painting but we see it differently, literally another side of the it. This other or hidden side may be more interesting and more aesthetically resolved. For a further explanation of Strip Painting click here.

Specimens (Archival Work). The archival work involves the recovery of slivers of paint from old paintings. These are then inverted and presented as “specimens” as though they were rare butterflies or the remains of precious parchments. We see the surface of the paint that lay on the canvas, not the surface the artist initially presented to us.

Interventions: The second type of work involves assemblages of old paintings. In the way Russian dolls sit inside each other, smaller paintings in their original frames are re-framed inside larger paintings but with only the backs showing. A consequence of this presentation is that we see the marks, stains and accumulated dirt that represent the history and life of the painting. I then make painterly “interventions” on the assemblages using fluorescent paint. The intention is to explore the tensions that are created by this and to challenge the conventional presentation of a painting.

Drawings: The drawings are essentially process driven comprising minute identical marks repeated monotonously and on a large scale. They can contain comment like “Body Count”, the US flag created with tally marks or “Love Story” made up of thousands of kisses (“x’s”). The sincerity of the message is created by the sheer scale and work involved in each piece.