Artists Statement
As a painter, and as someone easily preoccupied by social and political issues, I tend to create works which look at the society within which I live.
Often inspired by fables, by which I bridge the past with the present, current focus lies with the fable The Lonely Wolf by Janos Pilinszky. A post WW2 poet, Pilinszky spent a substantial amount of his life in concentration camps, and went on to write a small but poignant body of work inspired by what he experienced.
For me, The Lonely Wolf invokes a painful portrayal of a refugee, isolated and misunderstood, which is in alignment with treatment of refugees in recent years. I see the wolf attempting to navigate a path to safety, travelling over vast lands which are marred with paranoia and isolation as drawbridges are pulled up.
Primarily using oils on paper, I am finding ways to depict a fragmented society. By combining oil paints with mediums that by their very nature oppose each other, painted layers distort and separate. Strange fictional landscapes are pulled out of the random markings by the inclusion of detail such as houses, boats and trees. Clusters of tents, lifebuoys and other items alluding to the plight of the refugee can often be found.
Here influence also lies with the works of Chinese artists such as Quo Xi (1020–1090) and Zhang Daqian (1899-1983) whose landscapes are monumental and limitless, allowing for the eye to travel over vast lands, and for the mind to imagine even further beyond.
Sometimes in the earlier stages I tear my paintings up in to smaller pieces, once again exploring fragmentation, although sometimes they just work better that way. Surreal yet familiar landscapes with echoes of suburbia are not dissimilar to a setting for a fairytale, within which I will often include pockets of colour and light that allude to hope in our beautiful but confused world.
To read more on the fable The Lonely Wolf, please click here.
Often inspired by fables, by which I bridge the past with the present, current focus lies with the fable The Lonely Wolf by Janos Pilinszky. A post WW2 poet, Pilinszky spent a substantial amount of his life in concentration camps, and went on to write a small but poignant body of work inspired by what he experienced.
For me, The Lonely Wolf invokes a painful portrayal of a refugee, isolated and misunderstood, which is in alignment with treatment of refugees in recent years. I see the wolf attempting to navigate a path to safety, travelling over vast lands which are marred with paranoia and isolation as drawbridges are pulled up.
Primarily using oils on paper, I am finding ways to depict a fragmented society. By combining oil paints with mediums that by their very nature oppose each other, painted layers distort and separate. Strange fictional landscapes are pulled out of the random markings by the inclusion of detail such as houses, boats and trees. Clusters of tents, lifebuoys and other items alluding to the plight of the refugee can often be found.
Here influence also lies with the works of Chinese artists such as Quo Xi (1020–1090) and Zhang Daqian (1899-1983) whose landscapes are monumental and limitless, allowing for the eye to travel over vast lands, and for the mind to imagine even further beyond.
Sometimes in the earlier stages I tear my paintings up in to smaller pieces, once again exploring fragmentation, although sometimes they just work better that way. Surreal yet familiar landscapes with echoes of suburbia are not dissimilar to a setting for a fairytale, within which I will often include pockets of colour and light that allude to hope in our beautiful but confused world.
To read more on the fable The Lonely Wolf, please click here.
