ARTIST STATEMENT

There is a performance and ritual to it all; from the way the edges of the canvas are neatly folded and tucked, to the way in which the viewer approaches the four corners backed flat against the wall. The edges hover off the wall ever so slightly creating a breath of negative space between the two, the space between portal and wall, the painting acting as a porthole or window into the world created by the painting. The viewer circles the painting echoing the way the painter stood before the blank canvas, staring it into life, trying to translate the traces of colour imagined in their head, like two people squaring up to each other before a fight. Do we get too used to these routines and rituals? What happens when we break the socially ingrained choreography between the viewer and painter? The canvas has almost begun to be ignored as an object, instead paradoxically seen as an image.

The portal spits itself out over the clean white cube. Half chewed chunks of wood and fabric, stripped of their finesse and neat folds. It is built. Badly. It is no longer passive and waiting to be approached. It approaches you, catcalling from across the street.

They gape from their screws and white walls. They slouch against each other, commanding new steps to the dance; somewhere between a broken foxtrot and a sloppy salsa. They mean no menace, just a new perspective; a fresh tounge that gently references their mother, rephrasing past sentences in order to add a new tangent to the discussion.

BIOGRAPHY

My work is playful and explorative, bending the so-called ‘borders’ and ‘rules’ of mediums. I dance between image, object and performance experimenting with the ingredients that constitute a painting.

My paintings are disobedient and unruly. They are not passive objects. The painting portal spills out into the gallery generating an open social space that creates and celebrates unlikely collisions and collaborations.

Musician and artist originating from London, foundation completed at Leeds College of Art and degree at the University of the West of England.