As a painter I extract figures from photographs from the pre-digital age as a starting point.
These can be found family photographs or home movies. Watching these personal films I instinctively stop them on frames that resonate. The images I am most often drawn to related to peoples roles in society, the hierarchies and dynamics of power.
I paint with a strong idea of colour to begin. I use both oil and acrylic paint, alongside charcoal and pencil drawings. My background as a printmaker informs my use of layers and structure, yet I allow the process to move and evolve the work as it is constructed. Loose and textured painterly marks exist alongside more precise detail. A strong grounding in portrait and figure drawing gives freedom to describe or suggest.
Looking back into our recent past is an act of remembering and nostalgic mis-remembering, with photographs and film becoming the vehicle which constructs stories about ourselves. Figures are often rewritten or falling from clear view, and I use digital processes to reconstruct the scenes and suggest colour themes. Our history instructs, seduces and tethers us, and I look to use paint to examine these emotive memories which reflect current themes and tensions in contemporary life.