Thin Ice, Black Coal Painting

Born 1993, Newcastle-under-Lyme. My work tends to be populated with image fragments harvested from the dystopian worlds offered by sci-fi cinema. An on-going interest in digital culture(s), advertising and social media platforms has informed the subject matter I composite as painted layers. I am beginning to associate "lag" with positive attributes like the time to reflect (through painting), in opposition to the more normative, technological shorthand for a deficit in functionality. The imagery explored in my recent work tends to linger with notions of loss, where the presence of technology seems to provide some form of compensation. The pictorial spaces in my paintings have an intimacy informed by cinematography, fleeting moments on-screen have been materialised in oil paint over protracted time. Objects used as narrative signifiers are both depicted and re-experienced as props. The process of materialising these objects and presenting them within the gallery space alters their original narrative significance, giving them a new expressive role to play. By using new technologies to process product-like objects that quote from cinema, literary fiction and art history, these hollow replicas serve as an uncanny presence in tandem with my paintings.