ARTIST STATEMENT

My relationship to painting is defined through an engagement with the everyday, responding to the everyday forms of painting we may encounter in our daily life, ranging from found monochromes to the graphic form of road-markings. Following on from Maurice Blanchot’s definition of the everyday as, ‘ourselves ordinarily’, my practice engages with the everyday of painting by testing and framing the natural inclinations of painting material. Through this I may approach the questions: What is the everyday of painting? When is paint a painting?

The paintings I produce could be described as material case studies, for example, highlighting the adhesive properties of oil-paint (‘Secret Action Painting’ series, 2008-present), or framing the tonal changes in the surface of gloss paint as it dries (‘Container’ series, 2010-11). By engaging with the ordinary capacity of paint to mark, fill, cover or flow I may establish systems that allow the image of the work to emerge directly from its materiality.

This focus on the presentation and performance of painting material leads to a literal reduction of painting to its constituent parts; paint, surface, edge. My current work addresses this reduction consciously through experimentation with language, exploring Roland Barthes suggestion that if painting is understood as a 'determined deposit of matter', foodstuffs should be considered as paintings. My recent research project 'Dinner with Picasso' has begun to explore this idea by testing the generative relationship between cooking and art. I hope to develop this research project in direct relationship to my painting practice.