Abstracts
These abstracts reflect remnant, vestige, relic, trace, decay & ruin. Disrupted absolutes, halted time, futures past. The subject matter in origin often revolves around power, progress, grand schemes, political movements, industrial & political revolutions & the perishability of ideology. Referenced in history & the ravages of time which undermine concepts of linear progress. A study of Phenomenology has been a huge influence, contextualising spaces and ideas on society, culminating in the place of decay and abandonment.
The textures & patinas of stillness here represented, are also part of my childhood memories. Recurring dreams, influenced by playing in the deserted docklands warehouses of East London. These spaces & surfaces resonated with absence & the uncanny, which spoke of the mutability of a material existence.
The use of analogue photography is important too in these artwork. My background as a photographer, fascinated with analogue, led me to reference the photographic moment & process. Further, it took me on a journey exploring the formal concepts of pure photographic process, leading to an interest in a use for its own non-representational end. The pieces are a result of many experiments & manipulations of different types of instant film. It is apt too that the analogue suffers deconstruction & destruction, yet work as sites of aesthetic reinvention.
Vietnam DMZ Series
These works were created on a tour of the DMZ in Vietnam. Exploring the historical symbols, mechanisms & instruments of the ideological & very real devastating conflict which found it’s meeting point in this zone.
Cuba Series
Three series of abstracts originated on the streets of Havana and Trinidad. ‘Almendrones’ and ‘Chrome’ were created and inspired from the classic American cars which have survived in various states since the Cuban Revolution. Almendrones is the affectionate name used by Cubans, it means Almonds. ‘Casa’, created and inspired using the distressed walls of Trinidads pastel couloured and colonial style houses.