Artists Statement
For me, painting is a way of storytelling without words. I am creating psychological spaces which evoke an essence of that story, somewhere for the viewer to exist and carry themselves through.
My paintings are often a response to something external to myself, literature or a story in the news.
Currently my paintings are inspired by post WW2 poet Janos Pilinszky, with particular focus on Pilinszky’s Fable which is a stark but haunting poem portraying a refugee; isolated and misunderstood, the refugee is symbolised by a lonely wolf.
Journeys, displacement and longing are at the core of my imagined landscapes. Using oils on paper with mediums that by their very nature oppose each other, painted layers distort and separate. Unplanned stains and drips start to form something of the familiar. Strange, fairytale-like landscapes are pulled out of the random markings, and minute detail such as houses, boats and trees are painted amongst them.
Here influence also lies with the works of Chinese artists such as Quo Xi (1020–1090) and Zhang Daqian (1899-1983) whose landscapes are limitless, allowing for the eye to travel over vast lands, and for the mind to imagine even further beyond.
They move between dark and dreamy, reflecting the wolf’s hope, and then his fate. And so the landscapes are permeated with signs of uneasiness and seclusion, referencing the plight of the refugee. Sunken boats, life jackets and clusters of tents among other tell-tale signs can often be found among the rivers, hills and trees.
To read more on The Lonely Wolf, please click here.
My paintings are often a response to something external to myself, literature or a story in the news.
Currently my paintings are inspired by post WW2 poet Janos Pilinszky, with particular focus on Pilinszky’s Fable which is a stark but haunting poem portraying a refugee; isolated and misunderstood, the refugee is symbolised by a lonely wolf.
Journeys, displacement and longing are at the core of my imagined landscapes. Using oils on paper with mediums that by their very nature oppose each other, painted layers distort and separate. Unplanned stains and drips start to form something of the familiar. Strange, fairytale-like landscapes are pulled out of the random markings, and minute detail such as houses, boats and trees are painted amongst them.
Here influence also lies with the works of Chinese artists such as Quo Xi (1020–1090) and Zhang Daqian (1899-1983) whose landscapes are limitless, allowing for the eye to travel over vast lands, and for the mind to imagine even further beyond.
They move between dark and dreamy, reflecting the wolf’s hope, and then his fate. And so the landscapes are permeated with signs of uneasiness and seclusion, referencing the plight of the refugee. Sunken boats, life jackets and clusters of tents among other tell-tale signs can often be found among the rivers, hills and trees.
To read more on The Lonely Wolf, please click here.