Girl with Doll Photograph

After establishing a practice founded in painting and having spent many years working with imagery I reached a point where the experience of using images to make paintings was no longer sufficient. My interest for the past 2 years has involved a relationship with the very materials of painting and an interest in exploring the potential of these materials; canvas, linen, silk, pigment and wood, but within an unorthodox 3-Dimensional realm. Keeping within the vernacular of painting but using materials in alternative ways, I aim to stretch and prod at the boundaries of what painting is perceived to be and challenge its conventions. Using base actions inherently integral to both the arts and human nature such as mark making, cutting, folding, carving, balancing, stretching and stitching, I want to make seductive works that engage both myself and viewers in a physical and material response, rather than a response to image. As a society we have become extremely adept and accustomed to reading an image instantaneously. I think the excitement in opening painting up to physicality lies in the potential tension with the accepted traditions of what painting is understood to be and creating a viewing experience of painting that engages all of the sense, not just sight.