Artist’s Statement
Painting figuratively in oils I use traditional techniques to explore contemporary themes. By carefully building up layers or painting in a more urgent way, oils enable me to express my ideas both aesthetically and communicatively.
Many of my ideas come from observing the world around me through sketching, photography and simply looking. Through this process I start asking questions and begin piecing together puzzles that I find are best answered through painting. By combining my imagination with observed ‘reality’ I find challenges and exciting tangents that lead to discoveries and questions that feed into new ideas.
Living between Devon and London I am currently exploring the contrasts between urban and rural environments and people living within them. Being able to move freely from one environment to the other highlights if not exaggerates the differences. While rural identity is still to some extent based on one’s relationship to the land, working symbiotically with nature, I regard urban identity as man made and inextricably linked to modernity. As well as differences there are similarities, for example the use of technology. Increasingly we are all perfectly willing to suspend our disbeliefs, communicating via mobile phones and the internet, allowing us to transcend a raft of traditional, physical and mental barriers.
By painting every day subjects and juxtaposing and/or presenting them from an ‘impossible’ perspective I am questioning preconceived ideas of identity and reality in an era of unprecedented technological and social change.
Painting figuratively in oils I use traditional techniques to explore contemporary themes. By carefully building up layers or painting in a more urgent way, oils enable me to express my ideas both aesthetically and communicatively.
Many of my ideas come from observing the world around me through sketching, photography and simply looking. Through this process I start asking questions and begin piecing together puzzles that I find are best answered through painting. By combining my imagination with observed ‘reality’ I find challenges and exciting tangents that lead to discoveries and questions that feed into new ideas.
Living between Devon and London I am currently exploring the contrasts between urban and rural environments and people living within them. Being able to move freely from one environment to the other highlights if not exaggerates the differences. While rural identity is still to some extent based on one’s relationship to the land, working symbiotically with nature, I regard urban identity as man made and inextricably linked to modernity. As well as differences there are similarities, for example the use of technology. Increasingly we are all perfectly willing to suspend our disbeliefs, communicating via mobile phones and the internet, allowing us to transcend a raft of traditional, physical and mental barriers.
By painting every day subjects and juxtaposing and/or presenting them from an ‘impossible’ perspective I am questioning preconceived ideas of identity and reality in an era of unprecedented technological and social change.