Untitled Photograph

I can only effectively paint what I am interested in, or subjects I struggle with. This has been an unconscious process for me. A lot of my work also deals with my insecurities about growing up.
The idea of what we are meant to see when presented with an image of a person we know nothing about appeals to me. I try to create a vision of invisibility, aloneness and subtle traces of human residue in a grotesque media driven world.
I feel it is a great liberty to stare at a stranger, and in my portraits the children stare directly back at the viewer. Being given the opportunity to come face to face with a stranger and stare intensely into their eyes is something that rarely happens in real life, yet the viewers gaze does not threaten the boys as we would expect. It becomes the opposite in fact, with the boys making us feel as if we are personally responsible for their suffering. I tend to search for the inner beauty in life and even when destroying my images, this beauty still usually emerges.