Dancing Ladies Painting

This painting was featured in the Wing, London's private collection in 2019. I am an image scavenger, taking my subjects from across all forms of media. Particularly, lost traditions and ritualistic events, such as festivals, parades, and gatherings, inform the work. Reconstructing these events through the painted image, I use objects and clothing to signal the emergence of different worlds, to distort the familiar to seem unfamiliar. I use a muted pallet and varying layers of visibility and repetition to address time, loss and the concept of the hauntological. By dissecting and assembling the photographs I create fragmented narratives that become disorientating. We are asked to ponder who these people are, what are they celebrating, or mourning, or who they are waiting for. I aim to trigger a feeling of nostalgia and a sense of community that we no longer have. In doing so, I want to cross the boundary between a sense of longing and the anticipation of the unknown. My work forges a bridge between what has already come to pass and that which has yet to happen. Through the faded representation of the past, the paintings become strange fictions that blur the boundary between document and fiction. Whilst being menaced by a nostalgia for our lost histories, I seek to create new rituals and new possibilities for our collective histories.