My art is deeply personal, based on the memories, nostalgia, and emotions of an eclectic life. This involved political activism, visiting 60 countries, living in North America, Iran and Singapore and running an international business.
My recent work has focused on abstractions of images from recent explorations in Iceland, the Canadian Rockies, Antarctica, Northern Finland, the Atlas mountains in Morocco and Scotland’s outer islands.
Using different surfaces including fabric, steel, granite and wood, I collage various materials, chemicals, foil, and ground minerals into paint, facilitating experimentation and decision making. My output is textured and creates visceral impact. Questioning the work, how it is made and its relation to viewers’ own experience is integral to my art.
The intellectual, psychological and artistic challenges of expressing my contexts and values inform my creativity. The choice of colour, texture, marks, spatial proportion, materials and medium becomes complex and evolutionary. Initial ideas are modified and refined into potential solutions to my concerns which include climate change, preserving our wildernesses, resource depletion and their political, social and economic implications.
The notion of “wilderness” is germane. Time spent in Antarctica, Namibia and the tundra, provides vivid material to address the issues surrounding their disappearance and man’s environmental devastation. Urban wilderness equivalents like Stalingrad, Ground Zero and Homs, made indelible impressions.
My work suggests political wildernesses, personal powerlessness, and a void resulting in no response to this havoc. The impact of corporate globalisation results in the need for significant changes to the global construct.
Major references include Kandinsky and his journey to abstraction, Keifer with his scale, commentary and variety of materials and Ghenie and Tuymans for their political narratives.
My challenge is to navigate between the impact made by my art and its political messages, leaving its interpretation and understanding to my audiences.
I have exhibited in solo and group shows in the UK, USA and Italy.