Drawing on multiple strands from previous work, these paintings are meditations on the nature of narrative construction and the mutability of identities.

 

Figures are again incorporated to use as cyphers, geometry is a continuing motif and collage-type stories are negotiated directly on the canvas. Through the drawing/painting process, the decontextualised picture-parts are reformed differently within the compositional and sensual logic of the paintings. This process accumulates at different speeds — sometimes fast and light, often heavily reworked —  to create a particular temperament for each work.

 

In the more cryptic arrangements, animals may appear as extras or Pullman-esque daemons. At times, silhouettes of myself working are directly traced into the mix. Echoes from art history announce themselves indexically during the making, and are then used to shift the tone, to recode.

 

Just below our linguistic, rational or compositional constructs, there is a continuous stream which we can all detect during liminal states of consciousness, easily accessed in a flow-state of concentration. In the best and worst moments we are aware of ourselves as being just part of that stream of consciousness, just another fictional construct. In Spinozan terms, this is the sameness of the single substance of everything, an idea we can never fully experience, although painting as a medium acts as a good metaphor for it.

 

What disappears when we describe a dream? Why do we value spaces of not knowing? Why does painting continue through all technological upgrades? What will we do after work?