Tell me about your practice, what themes/ideas are you exploring in your work?
I have been pushing my expressionistic works over the years to distil my understanding of points of change in them, within the painting process. For example, to pinpoint exactly when the unconsidered marks change from something of a mess to something else; beau tiful? I am interested in this intersection of formality in expressionism, order versus mess.
In my figurative works these themes continue in relation to my life, and my art career, and I am painting the moment when a p art of my life becomes more understandable, less entangled or messy, a ‘penny drop’ occasion, beautiful. A lot of these moments of course happen to all of us during travels or outside our daily momentum, where my images are usually sourced from.
How do your figurative and abstract works relate to each other?
Both have similarities in technique and palette and there is a consistent ‘feel’ across them.
A lot of viewers search for objects or identifiable markers in abstractions as clues to a meaning for the work. And this is p artly why the eye will wander through the works.
My figurative works exclude obvious landmarks or focal points forcing the eye to wander similarly, looking for something.
And while both streams explore emotional expression, the abstractions are about the present moment during the act of working, the figurative about the moment they are representing, a sort document of that situational emotional recall. A recollection of my emotional response to that occasion as opposed to the present moment emotional response to the paint and th e artwork while it is being made.
Do both stream express the same ideas/themes?
I think more broadly they both reflect what is important to me in my life and my life as an artist, my ideas of lifestyle and my place in the world. My aesthetic of things not being too precious, allowed to be messy, not pulled apart and understood completely. Both streams are about my challenges of painting and of being a painter, having friends for lunches and cooking lots of things with no recipes, taking short- cuts, dancing like an idiot, being generous, observing fashion and interiors.