Statement
I am an artist living in London, working in London and elsewhere. I work mainly with drawing, photography, text and installation. My interests include taxonomy, peripheral space – in the world and mind, and how being alive here and now affects our ability to interpret ourselves and the places around us.
Disclaimer
Following are attempts to understand my practice in more detail. They are incomplete, probably contradictory and certainly incoherent when taken together.
Noisy World
We may seek contemplation and clarity in our lives, but so long as we exist as vulnerable bodies thrown into an unpredictable world, confusion and obscurity will threaten to overwhelm us. Happenings beyond our control, be they wonderful, funny, disappointing or deeply painful, inspire the movement of pencil across paper; a spot of ink or pigment is a response. It’s hard to see where the results fit, but they want to be seen.
Side Country
Somewhere between contemplation and noise lies the psychological territory I know as Side Country. Its physical location is similarly liminal: behind the shed, between paving slabs, round the outskirts of our towns and cities, under the white bits on maps.
Boxes
The world is everywhere but art is in boxes. The boxes are frames, screens, pages, galleries, even boxes. I have collections of things in boxes. The work is to arrange the boxes to produce meaning. This can emerge from the connections between the things in the boxes and from the connections between the boxes themselves; when it’s really working it emerges from both.
Incomplete
Sometimes I think that in the distance I can see the beginning of my art practice. I can see the window I just can’t see what’s through it. Things happen, work is made from time to time, objects and ideas are connected. Sometimes something breaks off and sometimes it is gathered up elsewhere. There is structure, but it comes from within, and is not clearly discernible when viewed from a distance. So any statement is a statement of failure, it is broken into pieces which may be irreparable.