Practice

My art practice operates across graphite, oil, and charcoal, treating them as an interconnected material system in which the primary formal development takes place during the graphite phase. Unequivocally figurative and grounded in art history, the work explores the most unashamedly trivial themes of the human condition, specifically sexuality and violence, from a humorous perspective. By approaching these heavy subjects with dry wit, I seek to expose the absurdity of that which tends to be overly romanticised.

The work draws significantly on the visual culture of the Middle Ages, particularly manuscript marginalia. What attracts me to these images is their conceptual precision: within a limited frame, a few lines and colours are enough to produce a concise, concrete scene with little room for over-intellectualisation. Marginalia is not the subject of the work, but one historical example of the graphic economy I aim for, and of the way disparate, often unresolved elements can coexist within a tight boundary.

The process begins long before I approach the blank page, through sustained research into artists, historical periods, images, and ideas that hold my attention. Once an image enters the graphite phase, the fluidity of thought gives way to a sequence of concrete decisions. Several sketches may be needed before I arrive at the frame and shape I am looking for. From there, material intuition takes over. Some images remain highly detailed graphite drawings; others expand into flat oil paintings or into large-scale charcoal paper works that I think of as black-and-white paintings.

At the heart of my work is a fascination with metaphorical liminal spaces, created by removing clear markers of time and place. Without those coordinates, the figures remain at the cusp of an event that never settles into narrative. That suspended moment may register as fear, pleasure, or even sexual charge, but once detached from a particular individual or story, it reads as absurd. This is why people appear with birds on their heads, comets behind them, or surprised existential expressions: the elements remain concrete but do not resolve into allegory. My interest in marginalia comes partly from this same economy and irreverence: for all its occasional allegory, sometimes two rabbits in body armour caught in a duel are just two rabbits in body armour caught in a duel.

Each work presents a brief and compressed moment rather than a complete narrative. The resulting image resists fixing a single message and instead behaves like a structure that must be continuously reread. What is visibly present on the surface remains permanently in excess of what can be definitively concluded from it.