Anna Maria van Schurman (1607-1678) Painting

Between 2017 and 2020 I have completed over 120 distressed portraits of European philosophers as a response to the UK's proposed exit from the EU. Maintaining a balance between the figurative and the abstract for each subject is a constant challenge as the eye tries to piece together a wholeness you are comfortable with — there’s an attempt by the eye to repair, it’s an instinctive action born out of fear of breakdown or formlessness. This is most evident in the large works where only by stepping back do the seemingly incoherent marks and colours resolve into a meaningful figure. This conflict between the paint as a material and the representation is never in perfect synchronicity, and although they can sometimes reinforce each other, there is always a tension between them.