This exhibition is the result of my first year at TURPS, during which I have mostly worked on paper. I am also showing three-dimensional pieces developed during the Summer of 2021.
This body of work derived from an exploration of improvised drawing techniques that are rooted in meditation and immersion in the very process of making itself. I wanted to find the core elements of my practice and the parameters were that everything had to relate to everything else: change and flux, flux and transformation. In mapping improvisation, a seemingly random and organic process, I noticed that the outcome was similar to the processes one observes in the growth and sprawl of a city or in the formation of clouds in the sky. Is there then a visual order in what is apparent disorder? How far can we let instinct and intuition be the guiding forces before the intellect kicks in?
Destruction and re-construction is a constant. The hand follows the action path of painting/making and the brain is in a constant workout of what it might/could be.
I work with black Indian ink and start the process at one corner of the paper and then work my way across its surface. As one line leads to another and shapes begin to appear, I focus on relating them to each other with a determination to also make them flow into each other. I want to make them crash and change in a graphic collision. Destruction and re-construction is a constant. The hand follows the action path of painting/making and the brain is in a constant workout of what it might/could be. In the larger-scale works, the physical challenge and experience of making also becomes a part of the action of the painting.
In the process I have found that recurring themes of sexual gay male identity combined with humour and absurdity surfaced amongst the cacophony of shapes.
The choice of medium is also important to the creative process. In paring down the materiality of the work to such basic elements: paper and ink, black and white there is a risk and vulnerability that comes with not being able to erase the outcome - you have to make everything work mistakes and accidents have to be part of the finished piece.
The aim of this work is to create an initial sense of disorientation and confusion. Then, as the viewer immerses themselves in the image, the work begins to reveal itself. I don’t want the work to be easy to digest — I want the viewer to have to wrestle with the experience of looking.
Thames Side Studios
Viewing Room
Harrington Way, Royal Borough of Greenwich
London SE18 5NR