Artist’s Statement
The lattice patterns I draw speak of an arrhythmia in the metronomy of the universal heartbeat that makes me aware of its tick-tock pattern. My subject matter stretches out under the forest floor and swells in the oceans, it hides in the dark and quivers in the depths of space. It echoes off my window panes and its colour seeps in through the gap in the curtains. It is both within me and flows through me.
I look at natural structures that replicate at different scales and imagine the invisible, vital, animating energy running through the veins of living things. I think about the cosmic forces, tides and elements that impact the world around me and space beyond. I am drawn to patterns I observe both in nature and the man-made environment and the way objects and places are shaped by their interactions, particularly by the repetitive rhythms of life. There is a grounding in pattern, a security that things will continue, like reaching the edges of a map, there is a certainty that the terrain extends beyond what we can see. My studio at Artist Hive in Tottenham is packed full of works on paper, sketchbooks, mixed-media models, found natural objects and large scale paintings on canvas.
I employ a systemic approach to drawing, loosely following a course predetermined at the outset but working organically and allowing space for a drawing to evolve in the making process. Grids and networks reminiscent of woven fabric and organic structures bring a unifying rhythm to the drawings and screenprints. My paintings play with the formal elements of colour, pattern and composition, endless permutations within the confines of the 2-Dimensional plane. I work predominantly in acrylic ink on stretched paper and enjoy the subtleties of different surface textures, absorbency of pigment and the potential to search back into layers of work beneath. Large scale drawings are rendered in acid-free, archival quality pen or acrylic ink refillable pens. I print my own short-run silkscreen and photopolymer editions alongside unique state screen-prints and mono-prints. I have grouped different series of works into collections on this website, where I have written about each project in more detail.
