By juxtaposing images and materials associated with my own recent and distant past, I interweave various references in my paintings and assemblages and play on the idea of visual skeuomorphism; designed to trigger recognition and associations in the viewer. These semi-autobiographical works invite the viewer, via shared relations,to identify with aspects of my character. My resource is my own collection of visual research, an archive accumulated over many years that includes my own photography, images associated with my childhood environment and vast selections from the constant feed of images and information online.
The selection and use of particular images, colours and materials is intuitive. In this way the works contain a kind of subliminal nostalgia, a visual timeline or mind-map, reflecting my most current visual fascination and preserving it by turning it into a physical object. There is a symbiotic relationship between the gathered visual archive and related research, each fuelling the other.
My paintings are typically assembled digitally to begin with. They then are physically rendered and constructed from a range of methods and materials; printed textiles and dyed canvas usually form the base, followed by various layers that may be stencilled, bleached or painted. My method of painting is similar to the layers in a Photoshop document. These layers sometimes have a more physical characteristic, for example when using a digitally printed image to produce a curtain that hangs in front of the main painting or overlaying a painting over another painting. This entices the viewer to explore the physicality of the paintings, investigate between the layers and the question the concept of representation.
