A Carnival of Pattern Painting

The order and perfection of geometry captured me from the moment my father put a compass in my hand, at the age of 4. Geometry often appears in my art and for me, it can be a symbol of order, structure and rules. To juxtapose fragments of perfectly formed geometry beside intuitive mark making, abstract swirls of colour or photo layered images and drawings fills me with a sense of satisfaction as it somehow mirrors our lives - a multiplicity of seemingly random events that may have some order beneath. Often, my artwork has a deeper symbolic narrative that allows it to almost be read and understood on a variety of levels. Certain geometric shapes and designs can be seen to have symbolic meaning in Islamic art, I sometimes use this to build in a deeper layer of symbolism into my work. Having lived the first part of my life in the diverse island of Trinidad, in the caribbean, I am drawn to vivid colours and textures, perhaps somehow harking back to the colours of carnival. Yet my personal studies into Islamic, Euclidean and non Euclidean geometry have opened up a world of psychological and spiritual symbology that has allowed me to explore bigger themes such as order and chaos; predetermination and freedom; intuition and reason.