Investigating the process

A key factor in this body of work has been the evolution of a much closer relationship, a symbiosis, between the painted and drawn elements.

The freedom that I was achieving in the drawings, which came about through starting with loose monoprints, I applied to the paintings. By printing directly onto the canvas using large sheets of plastic and viscous printing ink, then using a variety of media to work into and build up the surface, I was able to avoid pre-meditated expectations and enter a more charged arena for exploration.

This process of working and re-working, searching for a definable character or in other words, an insistence from the piece to be taken further, resulted in the removal of the object. This led into an area of liberating complexity where the absence of the object made it possible to investigate the dynamics of the process and risk.

I relied on different uses of overlaid rhythms on the surface, both tonal and linear, dealing with the horizontal, vertical and diagonal. The surface would become chaotic and complex, the sense of perspective in the semi-mechanical printed marks often counteracted by areas of paint or networks of lines. Repeatedly I would break down the structure, slicing into the surface and adding and subtracting, pulling the space backwards and forwards, in and out of focus.

The non-specific light source that emanates from the work and its substantial scale and format fills the field of vision immersing the viewer in the work.

The physical act of making the paintings places me within the environment, seeing both from close up the specific surface marks and then from a distance the contrasting seductive vastness. None of the spaces invoke the particular - there is always a sense of elsewhere.

This studio-based exploration through a series of paintings, allows the history of one piece to affect another, and for each image to elucidate the underlying vision.