I
paint to make sense of things; the visual world, the two-dimensional
picture plane, and the floating narratives in my head. It seems I
was cut out to do this. My infatuation with staring at the material
world has always been present and found early expression in drawing
detailed, obsessive studies of things. Nowadays, while I paint in
response to a broader array of issues, I remain fueled by the impulse
to look.
When confronted
with compelling sights like a table laden with food or a plastic tub
filled with spent flowers and lemon rinds, occasionally I will paint
them for their own sake. More often, I will gravitate towards something
in the scene which seems to be more meaningful. Often, but not always,
the meaning becomes clearer to me during or after the process of painting.
But the impetus for making the painting is grounded in the extreme
sensuality of my surroundings.
Eventually, and
equally, I am seduced by the abstract qualities of the picture plane.
Manipulating the visual elements in an image until I have a kind of
effigy of the real thing is endlesssly interesting. I know that if
I alter my decisions about color, placement, scale, and so on, the
resulting painting will be quite different as well as its meaning
altered. My aim is generally to create a highly graphic image with
distinct tension points and a controlled, even claustrophobic, sense
of movement within a rectangle. My placement of forces/objects tends
to be precise and directly reflective of the intended meaning.
The idea that
two images placed next to each other will evoke a narrative is an
idea of great interest to me. The fact that it often introduces the
element of time and interval into a piece is a bonus. To read a narrative
into just about any image, but particularly a pair or grouping of
images seems to be a very basic human impulse. I am increasingly interested
in piecing together non-linear narratives which can be read from multiple
points of view and reflect on the transience of objects, time and
the narrative itself.