Artist Statement
In a time of post truth, mediums such as video and photo have become less trustworthy and more malleable. For me the medium of paint is a less deceitful way of recording. Its language remains encoded as the marks I make are packed with thoughts and feelings. I view these as layers which come in and out of focus in a loop of information.
These feelings include nostalgia for my childhood. As a boy I spent hours looking at my mum’s art books such as the Pre-Raphaelites. This is perhaps why my paintings most often deal with romantic representation. My aim is to record a glimmer of this romantic experience amongst current forces which create uncertainty and weariness in our world. The forces which concern me particularly are the post truth era, political events, current affairs, global warming, queer theory, and the relevance of painting in contemporary art.
Amongst all these concerns I seek some essence of truth. I believe this is what attracts me to decadent literature in my research. The decadents were concerned with heightened experience and aesthetic sensations without a regard for boundaries. However, Europe at the turn of the 18th century had become world weary amongst changes such as the Industrial Revolution, Darwin’s Evolution Theory and behaviours which were considered ‘unorthodox’ at time. The decadent artists responded with sickly overabundance in their aesthetics and literature. I see many similarities to our current times and the decadents’ subversive responses to relentless changes.
The subjects I choose to paint are often taken from my own photos, moments in media or anything that I feel an urge to record in painting. Regarding my style a decisive mark in my practice were the paintings ‘Saint Eulalia’ (2020) and ‘Edward Colston’ (2020). These were heavily inspired by the fieldwork session ‘Landscape, clouds and blots’ I undertook at university in which we considered Mamma Anderson’s and Etel Adnan’s works. In these works, I found that trusting the marks that I made on the canvas brought me closer to the feelings I wanted to express. Opaque heavy blocks sit between translucent fluid paint soaked in linseed oil as light washes of cadmium yellow from the background peek through. The marks become stains, of which some carry more weight than others, indicating shapes, moments and feelings. These were perhaps more representative and not expressive of the energy with which I considered my concerns of a contemporary decadent world.
Furthermore, canvas making has been an important and passionate part of my practice. While I enjoy making traditional canvas frames I also experiment. For example, I use primed paper mounted with gum-tape. Its benefits include a quicker mode of production which has also contributes to my painting language becoming more fluid. I appreciate the ripple effect this has had even on my canvas works. In the paintings on paper such as ‘Reading Gaol’ (2021) or ‘Oprah’ (2021) I leave the gum tape partly exposed. I do this to emphasize the production side of my processes in an effort to be honest about my processes.
Sometimes in the progression of my works words from my readings of decadent literature, contemporary fiction and theory have slipped over into my work. For example, in the painting ‘The sixth star’ (2021) or ‘the yellow book’ (2021) which include words from many different texts. Amongst texts these are: Against Nature by Joris Karl Huysmans, ‘The Happy Prince’ by Oscar Wilde, The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, The Renaissance by Walter Pater and The Faggots & their Friends Between Revolutions by Larry Mitchel. This is a technique I use to express the overwhelming and often incoherent ideas and feelings which I gather in my research. In this sense, I can see that my paintings sit closely with those of Paul Fleck or Michael Armitage in thought and aesthetically. Finally, I would like to point out that I am happy to throw my viewer into a bit of a loop. Even in my own search to unpack romantic experiences and concerns I have often found more uncertainty rather than direct answers and I believe that is what art should do. It should make you think and not overtly provide answers.