About my Art Practice

I embrace art as a healing practice with a soothing, calming influence to reflect on my life history. The concept is to delve into feelings of survival and memory. My aim when painting is to capture that which scurries away from the corner of the eye, what is not easily seen. People have said that when I enter a place it is as if I were filming, like a bird, and indeed I feel closely connected to the animals’ instinct of survival, being resilient myself. Art is a place of refuge, and also an act of resistance and re-existence.

In my works, animals are portrayed and people in intimate and vulnerable moments surrounded by nature. I feel very strongly about issues of inclusion, diversity and equality in a time of urgency. I am deeply concerned in the face of the pressing environmental issues and the state of general apathy and acceptance of the status quo. The rationale for me, is that when we are in touch with ourselves, I believe we can be more compassionate and empathic, and we become aware of the fact that we are all responsible for our future. I appeal to that through my paintings.

At first glance, my works may appear to fall into the category of landscape or figuration. However, there’s always the element of something that is slightly out of place, something that can produce “oustranenie”, a challenging of perceptions and patterns of thought, ordinary things presented in a somewhat unfamiliar way. Quoting Jacques Derrida: “Art that makes you see”. That is what I seek.

In my works, time seems eternal and stopped because current reality is exactly the opposite. I personally investigate time as a subjective construct and the co-existence of realities.

I work with oils on canvas as well as pencil and charcoal on paper.  

I suggest pausing in a society where speed is everything and allowing the wise natural world we live in to serve as a guide so that we can remember who we really are.