Frankie, 2013, Mixed media on paper, archival frame, 59x38x4 cm
Run Deep, 2013, Mixed media on board, archival frame, 190x150x4 cm
These works are as much portraits as they are landscapes, combining influences that range from erudite painting or the history of the painted image, to citations of advertising images or comics. Interweaving multiple painting techniques and the effects of collage and trompe l’oeil, these textured creations feature a colourful and joyous parade of female protagonists and the occasional monstrous creature. Through the theatrical deployment of such carnavalesque figures, I incorporate painterly references to fashion (past and present), adornment, horror, disguise, tribal attire, and also camouflage. The masked characters record a kind of role-playing, exploring alternative representations of identity. In this context I examine the meaning of perception, mimesis, transformation and mutability as a function not only of dramatic personae, but of personhood in general. This is a way of understanding the cathartic role of disjunction and change as the first step towards understanding the unity of the self.
Central to this body of work is the heritage of Surrealist portraiture, both Latin American and Anglo-Saxon. Artists such as Remedios Varo and Frida Kahlo in Mexico, but also Eileen Agar, Leonor Fini, and Emmy Bridgewater come to mind. However, I try to bring a marked post-consummerist perspective to these layered assemblages, applying paint as an abject ‘second skin’, to either embellish or obliterate the impersonal mask that the fashion photo has become. Seen as a group, the works present to the viewer an opulent, multi-faceted garden in which organic detritus and cartoon-like mud coexist with precious stones, and in which strange yet festive figures emerge from metaphorical processes of growth and decay.
Run Deep, (detail)
Exhibition view of "The Garden of Follies" solo exhibition at Kunstmuseum Magdeburg, Germany 2016
The Super-Ego, the Id, and their ladies in Waiting, 2013,
Mixed media on board, archival frame
153x121 cm.
The Super-Ego, the Id, and their Ladies-in-Waiting, (detail)
In My Mind's Eye, 2011, Mixed media on paper, archival frame, 47x34x3 cm
L'Indécise, 2012, Mixed media on paper, archival frame,
90x70 cm.
Death Mask, 2013, Mixed media on paper, archival frame, 65x49x4 cm
Madame Sand, 2012, Mixed media on paper, archival frame,
140x53x4 cm
L'Effrontée, 2012, Mixed media on paper, archival frame,
101x78x3 cm
Le Jardin des Hespérides, 2103, Mixed media on board, archival frame, 153x121.5x3.5 cm
Le Jardin des Hespérides, (detail)
Brillo Head, 2013, Mixed media on paper, 42x29.5x3.5 cm
Fox-trott, 2012, Mixed media on paper, 105x61x3 cm
Dark Flora, 2011, Mixed media on paper, 64x46x3 cm