Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Oil and spray paint on board
31 x 26 x 2 cm
2024
A dreamscape of British national identity and a sense of place in principle is the driving force behind much of my work. The cultural and leisure activities of food, cricket, and the fairground, for instance, the motifs and mores of an English consumer landscape are eagerly investigated through my painting. An advertisement for Costa Coffee or Mcdonalds uses some of the same visual tactics that Caravaggio did in his ‘Still life with basket of fruit’ painting of 1599. I love the way the basket appears to fall out of this painting , in order to invade your space. This relationship to the presence of paint has been a particularly staple point of reference. I also love the atmosphere in Fragonard’s ‘Le petite parc’, and have tried to incorporate that particular feeling into some of my landscapes and fairground paintings. In literature, painting and fact, the fairground almost automatically carries the idea of transient pleasure and fun as it passes through town. I am aware that this can also allude to the art fair and the creeping notion of art itself being like a fairground attraction. While my intense impacted still lives and portraits attempt to create a sense of presence, the landscapes are more about a sense of nostalgia and perhaps a notion that that nostalgia is in fact haunted. For example as a motif cricket seemed fitting in trying to conjure up a sense of Englishness, with sport as a colonial export, with the players dressed in white looking like ghosts in the landscape. Although the emphasis from painting to painting might alter slightly, a gothic atmosphere does permeate all the work. Memory, decadence, and a dream like unreality remain the core recurring themes.
Oil and spray paint on board
31 x 26 x 2 cm
2024
A dreamscape of British national identity and a sense of place in principle is the driving force behind much of my work. The cultural and leisure activities of food, cricket, and the fairground, for instance, the motifs and mores of an English consumer landscape are eagerly investigated through my painting. An advertisement for Costa Coffee or Mcdonalds uses some of the same visual tactics that Caravaggio did in his ‘Still life with basket of fruit’ painting of 1599. I love the way the basket appears to fall out of this painting , in order to invade your space. This relationship to the presence of paint has been a particularly staple point of reference. I also love the atmosphere in Fragonard’s ‘Le petite parc’, and have tried to incorporate that particular feeling into some of my landscapes and fairground paintings. In literature, painting and fact, the fairground almost automatically carries the idea of transient pleasure and fun as it passes through town. I am aware that this can also allude to the art fair and the creeping notion of art itself being like a fairground attraction. While my intense impacted still lives and portraits attempt to create a sense of presence, the landscapes are more about a sense of nostalgia and perhaps a notion that that nostalgia is in fact haunted. For example as a motif cricket seemed fitting in trying to conjure up a sense of Englishness, with sport as a colonial export, with the players dressed in white looking like ghosts in the landscape. Although the emphasis from painting to painting might alter slightly, a gothic atmosphere does permeate all the work. Memory, decadence, and a dream like unreality remain the core recurring themes.
