My recent paintings have become increasingly layered, both materially and conceptually. Through repeated processes of painting, obscuring, removing and repainting, I create, define and blur boundaries between figures, forms and shared spaces. I work from photographs, drawings and direct observation, allowing recorded, remembered and closely observed details to overlap with mythological references. Different times, places and states of experience coexist within the same image, while forms emerge from and recede into darker grounds, leaving the paintings open, shifting and unresolved.
2020-23
Players is a series of 32 paintings of chess pieces, each representing someone who has had a significant impact on my life, intended or unintended.
Character, physical presence and my own shifting relationship with each person are abstracted through the symbolism of an ancient game. Brushstroke, scale, colour and position become ways of exploring internal turmoil, outward appearance and each figure’s connection to me.
The series began during lockdown, when I spent months selecting characters, categorising relationships, and repeatedly moving people in and out of the game. As I listened to David Bowie, the chessboard began to take on its own strategies and tensions. Each person was eventually assigned a line from Heroes, replacing the conventional divisions of opponents and allies.
Their identities remain undisclosed, leaving the viewer to read the clues and imagine each figure’s role, relationship and significance.
These became my lockdown heroes, playing out an internal world of attachment, conflict, memory and changing allegiance.
Death of a Peony
