Through those wide black eyes Painting

I am interested in the moment of transformation where a drawing or a painting or a sculpture becomes more than the sum of it's parts. When an artwork transcends its physical constituents (a log, or paint on a panel or pastel on paper) and the viewer can suddenly see things through it. This is a form of magic where the multiple meanings of a piece begin to ping off one another and resonate with a strange music. In my sculptural works the meanings develop slowly and gradually. The three totems began as an abstract set of figures and as i worked on them they came to represent myself and two friends who recently passed away. This is a meaning that was not attributed but that grew from them. In my paintings the narratives and characters are perhaps more planned and intentional but through fighting with the characters and developing the right atmosphere new stories inevitably are made and they often take on a life of their own. Through the pastel work I walk and listen to music and put a lot of physical force into the process of mark making and rubbing and merging the pigments which quickly can transform into a landscape where light is subtle and unpredictable. I have also engaged in an ongoing series of 'land art' sculptures using my own body as well as the environment to ruminate on the nature of holes. The hole is a tricky thing to define: is it an absence of something that is supposed to be there? Does it need a frame or surrounding to be a hole? What is the substance of a hole? Is it merely an absence? Holes also have a number of uses: fire pits, ponds, foundations, toilets, graves etc. These diverse meanings ping off one another and i find that any hole i dig is inevitably filled with meaning of some kind. If it is filled is it still a hole, and how would one create the perfect hole?