Drawing on significant life influences, the work interrogates the notion of 'self' in relation to gender, class and cultural stereotyping. Working with abstracted marks on stories of 'that which can be told but cannot be seen'.
The practice is a process - unravelling, through reflection, how we ‘Become’, to perform our many selves, exploring the nuances of memory as an 'in-between' space connecting self as Source and work as Surface. It is purposeful in seeking to 'UnBecome' - to inhabit a 'self that is acceptable to self'.
This UnBecoming unfolds new perspectives on self, the evolving spiral of our 'performances' in a time-related motion of folds and waves, cresting, accreting and eroding. In this I have been influenced by the concept of an enfolded self from the writings of Gilles Deleuze and Brian Massumi.
The body of work 'Becoming/UnBecoming embraces visual equivalencies of memory and sensation in a multi-media format including paint, installation, photography and sculpture, working with the qualities of the medium to describe ‘thought embedded in material’.
This sense of embedding emotion and memory in materiality is fundamentally informed by Howard Hodgkin's work for his considered statement of a single painted mark, and Albert Oehlen in his layered appreciation of an ugly-beauty.
Latterly I have researched the two extremes of self, drawn to both figurative and abstracted practices through study of Agnes Martin's work and colourists Mali Morris, Alma Thomas and the immersive colour field paintings of Mark Rothko. Jo Spence’ reflective exploration of her photo-archive is also a strong influence so that a kind of hybrid realism is abstracted and absorbing Marcel Broodthaers' continuous Sisyphean washing of marks.
It is important to me that the medium is embedded and enmeshed into the work as shown in ceramics, glasswork and linen used for the painted surface. This ingraining of marks, residues, and threads represents our 'self' or 'selves as a web, tethered and woven by our circumstances and influences.
thought embedded in material