I have been continually fascinated by figurative images that challenge conventional representation. I work with flat colours, to compliment my simple and imaginative subject matter. My work is concerned with finding a visual language in which to express the concept of the space between the physical environment and psychological ideas about time, space and dreams. I am particularly interested in creating images that have a decorative quality, reflecting a contemplation of daily life, physical and emotional identity, personal experience, memory and the subconscious. This allows me to convert my autobiographical experience into images that I work from.
My work utilises both figurative and abstract geometric forms in one image using hard-edged motifs in apparently simple forms but layered in complex and spatially ambiguous ways. I have used the same landscape and everyday motifs repetitively through a number of paintings and also played on juxtapositions. My initial working processes begin with drawing images selected from photographs, magazines, references from my previous paintings and my imagination.
The series of 5 interior paintings in which I appropriated work of other artist’s such as David Hockey, Giorgio de Chirico, Rene Magritte and Dexter Dalwood that have some connections with my paintings, either surrealist concepts or physical freshness and flatness of image. I had become interested in how, as a viewer, you can look into and out of a space at the same time. The use of other artist’s work allows me to incorporate two completely different images. I therefore juxtapose what may seem (to the viewer) like ambiguously related appropriation with my own imagery, but, by bringing together two apparently different images to create a new image it is my aim to shift the viewer’s perception in an attempt to lead them into an alternative space.
I have approached my recent works from a Buddhist perspective. After my mother passed away I began to study Buddhism and developed a great affinity with it. I see Buddhism as a science of the mind, rather than a religion, and believe it can apply to, and influence, my art and life in many positive ways.
My reason for making art is not only a desire to constantly find new and varied ways of expressing myself but also to explore and reveal aspects of my personality previously hidden from my conscious self. My art work has developed and grown in complexity and this has led to a simultaneous growth of self awareness that has enriched me both emotionally and intellectually.