I make art, and to be more precise – print, in an attempt to make sense of the world, to capture the energy and reasons that move us and make us who we are.
…My recent work is a celebration of life and a reflection upon its highs and lows and tensions in between. It is concerned not only with physical structure but also with the thought and emotion that move us into action. It is also about how the environments we inhabit shape and change us. It is about how a collision of space and form create new animate forms and enhance the borderline energies. It is about life, which is movement.
I am fascinated by the expressive nature of human motion and its dialogue with space. I construct and engineer my forms instead of drawing directly from life and build suggestions of meaning into my compositions and visual provocations.
As much as I am concerned with the conceptual side of my work I am interested in pushing the boundaries of materials I am working with. Whether it is a zinc plate, which I treat as a sculptural medium, or semitransparent paper, which I use to layer individual images to create an illusion of depth or references of shifts in time.
I use cross cultural references and allegories but would often take them to a tangible personal level to communicate the feelings and emotions we may all share.
FAQS
“AN ORIGINAL PRINT IS A WORK OF ART THAT CANNOT BE PRODUCED ANY OTHER WAY”
I tend to work between a variety of printmaking media / methods each complementing the ideas explored at the time. This ensures that the print is not purely individual or unique at a technical level but rather the fusion of ideas with execution means that the print itself could have not been created in any other way. This in a very real sense is what makes the body of work original.
“JUST BECAUSE MULTIPLES ARE INVOLVED IT DOES NOT DENUDE THE WORK OF ITS ORIGINALITY”
The question of confusion comes from how every artist approaches aspects of repetition and deviation, especially when it comes to the editioning of work (making multiple copies). There is a wide scale between systematic control in order to make images alike and the endless creative possibilities that allow for infinite variations. Beyond the rigid tradition of Old Master’s printmaking, these days artists are freer to use printmaking as means of expression rather then means to produce multiples. On a personal note all my prints are hand made by me and no two copies are identical due to the variability of the printmaking process.
“THE PRINTMAKING PROCESSES AND ITS TECHNICAL RIGOUR INFLUENCES THE FINAL MESSAGE”
For me the process of printmaking revolves around its iterative nature, a repeating process where one iteration is used as the starting point for the next iteration. A continual evolutionary process in which each step in the production cycle forges the ultimate output. The medium therefore influences the work and becomes part of the message.
“UNIQUE ARTISTIC INTENTION DRIVES ORIGINALITY”
At the end it is a unique artistic intention that makes a print an original work of art – from conceiving an idea to giving it a form and a physical presence. It is the unique set of artist’s skill, talents and experiences that make the work of art truly original.
“WHY I DRAW WHAT I DRAW AND HOW I DRAW IT…”
Most of my works are drawn freehand directly onto a zinc matrix plate. I do not make changes to my line drawings; I have learnt to trust my hand. I do not use models either. Knowing the physical structure of a body is akin to appreciating the inner workings of a spirit that abides within it. I aim to create a tactile relative to our human experience; to take an intangible and make it into something tangible. To simply transform that which we cannot explain in words and translate it into an experience.
“TECHNIQUE OR ‘INSPIRATION’?”
The process is a dialogue / balance between two powerful sides of human nature: instinct and intelligence. Where an artist can be simultaneously an improviser and a constructor. It is the tension between control on the one hand, and an eagerness to accept and embrace mistakes on the other.
