Artist's Statement

For the past several years I've been constructing images that force a contradiction between illusionistic space and

physical space or presence. These are paintings with one voice saying, "This is what's happening", with another saying, "I wouldn't bet on it". The painting's size and  materials scale the conversation, so to speak.

The references are internal and are shaped by the preoccupation of the extremities of material (wood, canvas, paint, cement, polyfilla, etc.), its behaviour and the crafting of it. External references are to the experience of the

natural world and the memory, musings and analysis of it through history, science, literature and the arts.

I like to think of this activity as a kind of applied agnosticism; a possibly silly attempt at reaching for the unknowable, a peak behind the curtain, a sniff of what is behind the material stuff. Its sitting at the window

watching the disappearance of what seems  to  have been there, weighing the untrustworthiness of sight as

connected to thought, ambition or mere cultural conditioning.

So its to begin a painting from a single entry point but as the certainty of coming to an end or exit unravels (either

by materials insisting on defining their own meaning or uncooperating terms of illusion) one is forced to stop,

re-enter. Attempt a different route. In this outcome it is easy to project moments  of insight or prolonged discomfort

as the departure from cognitive awareness shifts to acceptance of infinite possibility.

It is in this sense I am trying to create small situations that challenge what we think we see or know.

 

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