Series of postmodern still lifes

The paintings are framed and presented within the social and historical context of home

The history of the walls in my house have adorned in all probability typical still life paintings, landscapes and portraits. The house was built in 1872. The walls of the house are crucial to the context of the still life paintings created. The use of oils within the paintings was an imperative to further connect the past with the present future. The importance of painting with oils was to further convey a historical trace which threads to today’s work.

This considers the materiality of the painting as an object complicit to concept. The presentation of each work is part of the fabric of the walls within the rooms of the house.

Portrait of the Artist

The two pieces work together to explore preconceptions of gender and human behaviour within history and time.

Performance Painting

An idea that begins with thought becomes tangible and exists through the medium of paint.

With this series of paintings I carried out mark making on several different days. The marks were composed at erratic times whenever I needed to walk through the hall where the canvas was hung. I stopped - picked an oil colour randomly and built a matrix of marks across a three week experimental period.

The aim was to place a thought that became an action expressed physically. This has been my first performance painting. What framed the piece was the relationship between passive and active time echoed within the painting.

Snow Installation

The idea behind the Snow Installation was to make a transient piece of work. The purpose of the work was to explore the idea of change or shift, which could be a physiological or Intellectual response to a question. Hence each snow Sculpture or Installation is different to symbolise a change or a shift in thinking and being.

Behind the Mask - The Artists Collection

Visit the Exhibtion Behind the Mask Exhibition, Ipswich Art School Gallery 

Chalk Board Drawings

A series of Chalk board Drawings were initiated during a seven day period. Each Drawing therefore wiped out the previous day’s Drawing.

The successive drawings were (built on the History of previous drawings) and allow visible overlapping of imagery. This suggested the idea of an inner narrative. Here, text was partially visible (building on the idea) that, we have many forms of work, to do, at any one moment.

The drawings were restricted by medium and media. They were made from short bursts of work and residue ideas and concerns. The reason the drawings were made on the chalk board was to overlap my domestic and Artistic self. The drawings are one aspect of Identity. The black board is used to outline the week’s calendar, but I wanted to use it as a canvas for my work. The restriction enforced by the crude implement of chalk restricted each drawn outcome, just as my physical being and movements are repeated and restricted by cooking or laying the table.

In this work I was interested in exploring the idea of creativity or creative output through restriction. The element of restriction is echoed in my daily life, (through routine and duties) which is repeated daily. In this work I am also interested in the idea of incremental learning, building a series of drawings and learning from each one. 

One of the important elements of drawing for me, is to reflect and relate a drawing to the world we live in and by so doing externalise a thought.

House Installation

During my second project using domestic Dollies I aimed to create an Installation using the House as a canvas to describe the archetypal perfect family house at Christmas. I tried to paint a white Christmas by hand cutting paper dollies.