Carmine's Forest Collage

I live in the misty and rather magical Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa with my husband Patrick. My work shifts between the traditional medium of oil on canvas, and mixed media, collage and assembly. I am interested in the concept of Transcendence and am generally anlways investigating the concept of ‘Transition’; of moving beyond or through a context; be it an emotional or physical state. The works are predominantly ‘Mixed Media’ where a process of oil painting and objects-found are often embedded in resin. The objects found become treasures taking on magical new forms e.g. broken butterfly wings attached to a silhouetted figure allows for flight and transformation. I have a fascination with ‘time’ and ‘dimension’ and the existence ‘beyond’ these concepts. I will often include the roman numerals of ‘X,V, i, ii and iii’ The figure represents the universal pilgrim always on a journey of Seeking, and Finding Things. As with life, in making art, i sometimes find myself moving along steadily, walking onwards; or racing ahead with speed and glorious energy. And then there are times that I’m crawling, grappling, searching. There are rare times too that I feel to be floating, or flying even. In all instances, I am Finding Things (the title of my website blog). Creating art brings balance, connects me with myself, my context and with those around me. I get to understand things better. Mostly, creating art makes me enormously happy.