Artist Statement
I am interested in the intersection of art and science, with questions that arise about the nature of reality and the natural world, our place in it and perception of it. In my paintings I explore the boundary or “skin” between the human and the natural world and ways in which our consciousness, and sensual and cultural perceptions can both facilitate and impede an experience of the natural world.
Can the boundary or skin between the human and natural world be
dissolved or made transparent by the energy of desire, by Eros, by
love, by ecstasy and a desire to connect: to be at once subsumed and to
possess what we see, feel, touch, taste and hear?
Perhaps these perennial questions have been made particularly relevant
by our occupation of a space that is increasingly mediated by
technology and by experiences that are more virtual than corporeal.
Perhaps, as a consequence, there is a renewed desire to lose oneself in
the landscape.
Paint is used to explore these questions and ideas because it is at once is material, molecular, and is a conveyer and a repository of ideas. The idea is embedded in the paint and the canvas is an analogous “skin”. In all works colour is paramount.
The large abstract paintings in “Love on the Rocks” were painted at
the artist residency in Pouch Cove Newfoundland during the summer of
2007 and are a distillation of transformative experience. They began as
simple pencil line sketches, some done while sitting on the cliffs
recording the pattern of the waves on the sea over a period of time and
some from compositions gathered while walking the East Coast Trail.
In the series, “Eat Me”, a woman is caught on the brink of consuming
(or being consumed by) a flower, in an intimate and carnal connection
with the natural world.
In “Sugar Bush” and the earlier series, the canvas is first covered
in lip prints/kiss marks; used for their mutable symbolic significance
and also for their remarkable morphological similarity to other natural
forms, suggesting by implication, in addition to love and sensuality,
our essential corporality and connection with the rest of the natural
world.
