Recent work

Berlin: weeds, landscapes

Taking as their starting point the role of painting as a window of the world, I have then subverted, abstracted, or otherwise destroyed the recognisable imagery. I use collaging, folding and, in the case of works on canvas, unpicking and resewing, to hide aspects of the image. In so doing, I look to draw attention to the dichotomy between what the image portrays, and its form: that is, the painted surface.

These works are all based on drawings of weeds made during a three month stay in Berlin. Often overlooked, as a stranger in a new city I found myself drawn to them. I like their tenacity, infiltrating the urban, literally breaking through tarmac sometimes. The works are further rooted in the place of their making by incorporating dyes and paints which I created from plants and other materials I collected in the city, including Elderberries and Goldenrod.

Small histories

Beginning as drawings I made as I travelled through the landscape, recording the passage of time and distance, each vista passes by in a few seconds and is rendered in a fleeting outline. By layering similar forms as I encounter them, the familiar breaks down into an abstract image. The paintings are presented in found frames, moving beyond the confines of their painted image to encompass the whole framed object.

Minimalism

Unpicked and re-sewn canvases which have their surface laid bare. The acts of unpicking and resewing bring attention to the canvas – to its materiality and its presence. What was once manufactured is rendered as craft; hand- and machine-made are juxtaposed. The surface becomes form; the painting, an object.

Structure

Representing the familiar, this series takes sources of information, nullifying them. Graphical lines, removed from the axises which make them comprehensible, are collaged together into pure form, reminiscent of landscapes or maps. The text and images of a discarded newspaper are painstakingly cut out to reveal the supporting structure without which the words and pictures would be nonsense.