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S T A T E M E N T
I construct communication processes both in galleries and public spaces, as a means of engaging with dichotomous entities—entities that occupy opposing ends of the same spectrum. Specifically, I investigate the relationship between public and private, self and other, artist and audience and the conscious and subconscious mind. How do these relationships co-exist and affect each other? How are they interdependent? What tension exists between them and how does that tension/co-existence construct our stories, identities and ways of being?
The work, in its myriad forms, gravitates towards the end of the spectrum whose existence seems to be buried or denied in the overall equation. What is not seen? What is not spoken about? What has passed before us or through us that has left some indelible trace? How can we trace those traces, map them, or bring them back from the past—from their neglected or forgotten places to understand and re-contextualize them in the present moment?
This is not done as a purely philosophical or conceptual examination. It needs to be felt. The work is therefore dependent on objects that can be experienced viscerally. Questions are investigated by placing objects between the ends of the above-mentioned dichotomies. These objects often rely on the immediacy of mark making as a basic human impulse and locate the body, the object and experiential knowing at the center of these self-reflective, meta-cognitive interventions.
The work strives to be active, relevant, and socially engaged. It demands interaction from the viewer or participant. The underlying suggestion is that the work cannot exist without ‘the other’ – and it doesn’t, whether that is literally—wherein the work can only be completed through outside intervention, or less obviously, as the viewer finds themselves implicated in dialogue through the call and response nature of my paintings. The work is always calling ‘the other’ into conversation.
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