My work is concerned with giving shape and colour to the wordless unconscious - the place in us all that is before and beyond words. Art has the unique capacity to bypass conscious and rational thought and speak directly to and from the unconscious.
I work in abstract acrylics, building up multiple layers of paint, over time, that have the capacity to reveal, obscure and give depth to these wordless states, giving hazy suggestions of form, feeling and memory, stopping short of the figurative.
My paintings explore the tensions between the aspects of being human that we can't control or anticipate, and the conscious narratives we overlay to help us feel that we have a degree of agency. This is reflected in my painting process where I employ a combination of techniques, some of which I have little control of, combined with others I can tightly control.
My work is heavily influenced by psychodynamic theory, a main tenet of which proposes that the unconscious, shaped by very early experience, exerts a powerful and unseen influence on our day to day lives. It is this 'unseen influence' that, in the words of the poet Adrienne Rich, "I want to see raised, dripping, and brought into the sun".
