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I graduated in 2006 from Leeds Metropolitan University.
I painted my way through three years of study, grappling with my subject matter, material knowledge and personal exploration. The work produced for my degree show loomed, 9ft high seemly referencing tombstones. The works were a response to Ilkley Moor. The cup and ring markings made by the long time dead Neolithic people were a fascination of mine and I was keen to reference the stones upon which they were carved. The paintings were directly influenced by the surfaces I had researched, I sanded away at a layered, painted, gesso surface, mimicking the elements that eroded the rocks. The works were also illustrations of a subconscious state, informed by my experiences of the Moors and my experience with the work as paintings. Depicted was an atmosphere with form appearing then disappearing before and beyond a shifting, silvery haze. I have continued to make work about the environment, man’s interaction, destruction and cohabitation with it. And though this concept is ever present, I realise I am consumed with the intimacy of painting, the conversation artist has with brush, with paint, with canvas or with board or with paper. In Chris Ofili’s recent film associated with his exhibition at the Tate he described himself with his new paintings in Trinidad. He explains that for a while he is saying one thing and the painting saying another, they argue and it is hard, but then finally they are friends. It is this that sets me apart and against the commercial pull of painting, this awareness of a conversation between painter and painting. I believe that I am exploring the external environment. I feel my way through surface, enlarging the scale, through erosion and through layers of translucent varnishes. I wish to continue my area of interest in an institution that supports the painter. I wish to develop and refine my interests through discussion and learn to further draw upon the academic understanding of the perceptive viewer. I aim to produce a body of work that is a deep and concise exploration of the presence of visual sound and to depict a world that confuses scientists, botanists, anthropologists though effortlessly enchants a curious viewer. |