Artist Statement

My cross-disciplinary practice ponders the dichotomy between theoretical explanations of life and the physical experience of living.  The visual language of lattice networks reminiscent of constructed textiles is juxtaposed with loose and gestural mark making floating in layered colour fields. This contrasting use of materials touches on reconciling rational and emotional responses and accepting composite states and liminal spaces. There is a sense that these images and objects could be hand-crafted or naturally emerging forms and networks.

Recent bodies of work predominantly focus on large scale paintings and smaller drawn and painted works on paper in acrylic ink.  The repetitive build up of woven lines in these layered works alludes to time both on a momentary and continuing basis but also as layers of history or distance into space. I am drawn to pattern, perhaps as a genetic memory of the labour and craft of generations of textile worker ancestors.  I look at natural structures that replicate at different scales and imagine their invisible, vital, animating energy. I think about the cosmic forces, tides and elements that impact the environment and space beyond, considering the ways in which objects and places are shaped by interactions, particularly by the repetitive rhythms of life.  There is a grounding in pattern, a security that things will continue, like reaching the edges of a map, a certainty that the terrain extends beyond the visible. 

Mingled amongst the body of paintings, drawings and print, are a series of 3-Dimensional objects with 4-Dimensional qualities akin to Klein Bottles or Mobius strips.  These objects are hand-crafted, often hand-held and are generated in response to research into the smallest knots and loops of the universe. In the broadest sense, the objects relate to the field of jewellery in their scale and suggestion of relationship to the body but their presence is sculptural.  The palette of materials and processes is diverse and experimental from crocheted wire dipped and flocked to shell like paper and card constructions.  There is a degree of hybridity in the works, crossing between drawing and painting, making, placement of objects in relation to 2-Dimensional pieces; a back and forth conversation between works in different media and dimensions.  Research is underpinned by close observation of nature, the encountered world and a hunger for knowledge and answers to existential questions. Drawing is a tool for research and a process to contemplate, reconstruct and reimagine the structures and forces that lie behind and influence the lived experience.