I begin my portraits with my subjects, enjoying watching their features emerge from the white canvas, I manipulate my lines, my brushstrokes, my technique to create their identity. I explore the combination of internal and external dialogue, including their confessions, masks and behaviour, with the aim to encapsulate their character, dimension and being into a single portrait.
My likeness to artists comes from their love of the human form with my favourites including, Jenny Saville for her interrogation and alternative notions into the female body and figure. Lucian Freuds meticulously executed realist works of nudes. Caravaggio for his use of tenebrism and acutely observed realism that brings both a emotional resonance and intensity within his subjects and finally Gillian Wearing for her visual dissection into confessional aspects of quotidian using the psychological penetrating qualities of film making and photography.
For me painting allows me to measure, manipulate and define the subjects emotions, the simple use of directional mark-making can engage the viewers into moving his or her eyes around the flesh, through layering and visual clues I aim to create wonderment about the person depicted. My material process highly contributes to my overall theme and artistic process, whether my work is based on a theoretical interpretation or simply an emotional depiction the paint application is often a statement to my overall meaning. For example in recent development process in a series known as ‘Just one more bite’ the physical incorporation of food into my paint application heightened the confessional nature within the piece.
Perhaps in my own work the most important factor in underpinning my creative development can be seen in a combination of ideologies and theories that focus on the notion of identity. I am always inspired by the way in which we mask, shape, or adapt ourselves to the world around us, I enjoy capturing our confessions, fears and daily struggles to obtain a concept known as ‘Normality’.
‘Of all the perceptions we experience in the course of living, perhaps none has been more profound significance than the perception we hold regarding our own personal existence. Our view of who we are and how we fit into the world. This internal view of personal existence is called ‘self’’. From the contributions of William. W. Purkey I was astonished by the length to which we as individuals will sacrifice physical comfort for internal satisfaction. I became emerged in the self-actualization and damage that can arise from these behaviours. As a result his theorised can be seen to have been adopted in my own work, by extracting the confessions both from the depths of oneself and the people around me I aim with precision to extract the truths and display whatever us as individuals find most difficult to tell.
