Practice

My art practice revolves around three primary mediums that feed each other - graphite, oil and charcoal; with most of the play and process taking place in the graphite phase. Unequivocally figurative, my work is grounded in art history and it explores the most unashamedly trivial themes of the human condition - sexuality and violence - from a humorous perspective. I seek to expose the absurdity of that which tends to be overly romanticised.

The creation process begins long before I tend to a blank paper. I constantly research themes that hold my interest in books about artists and art periods that I am drawn to (I have quite a collection); and in library databases, focusing on my favorite topic - marginalia in manuscripts from the Early Medieval period. There is something absolutely absurd and marvelous about the imagery in those marginalia. Within a few centimeters and just a few lines and colors - a concise scene, a concrete concept with little room for over-intellectualising is born. And that is the conceptual precision I strive to achieve in my works as well.

When I begin to sketch out an idea, it is the beginning of the end of the visual play that goes on in my head. There's a bit of suffering involved; in needing to lay concrete lines that cut through a pleasant entanglement of thoughts like through flesh. Several sketches later - I will have arrived at the frame and shape I was looking for. From there, technical and material intuition takes over. Sometimes, it will be enough to end on a highly detailed and precise graphite sketch. But most likely, I will also continue on to an oil painting (not without more suffering in arriving at a color palette). And once in a while, there will be a calling to turn it into a large scale charcoal piece, which I find would be more accurately described as a black and white painting.

At the heart of my work is the fascination with a metaphorical liminal space in which lies the dread of the unknown. Being at the cusp of something, a rush of adrenaline, it may bring joy (that might even be sexual in nature), but also fear; and if you pre-individualise the experience - the absurdity and insignificance of it all is rather funny. To me it is anyway. That was a lot of big university words to say that I like painting people with birds on their heads, or a comet in the background and a surprised existentialist look on their faces. I suppose that what draws me to marginalia, aside from the occasional allegory, sometimes it really is just two bunnies in body armour caught in a duel.

Ultimately, I see my works as haikus. Each one depicts a tiny and concise moment in time. One may choose to stay at the surface and enjoy the lines and colors, but the option to dive deeper is there.