I am a multidisciplinary artist. I work in traditional art genres of painting and photography while crossing into new media artforms of video, design and mixed media art. The visual representation of every project differs depending on the subject and its relation to the medium. Function, structure, location and space and how they integrate in our natural and industrial landscape are key subjects. I also pursue creative ideas which reflect my interests in cultural, social and environmental currents.

+++ DECONSTRUXiETY +++

Construction noise is an entirely different orchestra of sounds. Tools of the trade such as hammers (traditional/jack/sledge), nail guns, drills, sanders and saws (hand/circular/miter/reciprocating), are mixed with shouts, curses and garbled conversation on a backdrop of deafening, vexatious classic rock radio and banter. Bulldozers, excavators, dump trucks full of sand or gravel, and 18-wheel flatbed trucks squeeze into tiny streets carrying forests of lumber and building materials. They tag each other and wait in turn, filed roadside down the street while occasionally sputtering their idling trucks to a roar of advance.

We lived on a residential street in the second house from the corner. The sounds on any given day were lawn mowers, kids squealing, birds chirping and the low hum of traffic murmuring in the distance. Directly beside our home, not even two metres away, the corner house was gutted, raised and redeveloped over a twenty month period. In that back yard, adjacent to ours, a two-level/two-suite house was built from the ground up - the ground that formerly held a wall of cedars and a juicy cherry tree that shielded us from prying eyes. Across the street in front of us, the exact same scenario including a new house constructed in the backyard. Across the lane behind us, a fire destroyed a few businesses and they too have been rebuilding. Nevermind the neighbourhood or even the street turning into a construction zone, but a fifty metre perimeter around our home played host to twenty grueling months of demolition, construction and personal anxiety.

In photographing the developments surrounding my home, most of the images depict the location as it slept in waiting for the daily barrage of deafening construction bustle throughout the next day. Even finding solace in the quiet evenings and late nights was countered with the realisation that a house stripped of its windows, moulding, siding and roof gives off a skeletal appearance. It was pure evil as house incarnate. Construction is hell.

 

+++ HORiZONS + iNTERSECTiONS +++

Our environment changes so frequently that it's difficult to imagine the earth's surface as full. Humankind's sprawl over open territory combined with our skill at adapting to new environments poses the question: Do we notice the changes around us? As we transform, degrade and obliterate our natural surroundings for the sake of urbanization and new development, is our progress marked by how far we will go or how much space we have left on this planet?

Infinity is a short word for something so vast and intangible as a never-ending horizon. A skyline displays a variety of buildings and structures, hiding the open ground which spans further than any eye can see. It is a place where two crucial elements to human existence - earth (tangible) and air (intangible), appear to meet - but do not. An officially declared intersection, marked as two [or more] designated meeting points has been created to increase the flow of direction. What was continuous is now divided by way of a connection point. Both horizons and intersections offer space where conflicting elements convene to create a perceived meeting place – ground that is open to interpretation with Horizons + Intersections.

In transforming this illusion by way of digital manipulation, the viewer can witness the integration and impact of our global presence. Through mutating landscapes in constant transition, new images are created which themselves cross over into regenerated and constructed environments. Roads appear through once open fields, bridges scale over land where there was previously water - all achieved digitally, however altering the viewer's perception as to which image is their reality.

 

+++ HOME +++

HOME aligns itself between personal and spatial relationships in the self-incubating environment of living, loving and working from home. When those elements are displaced, the pace of one's home life is indeterminately altered. The self-protecting cocoon the urban dweller creates is too fragile for change. Home followed a path of indecision, frustration, reconciliation, fear and clarity and revealed the contradicting simplicities and complications of that journey.

 

+++ SCRiNKED +++

I am awestruck as to how often I see visual similarities, a common theme, or an image which repeats itself in different forms; something so large it cannot be comprehended, yet as another form under great magnification is equal in its visual construction. The microscopic cells of living organisms, gasoline vibrantly streaming down a wet street, willow trees swaggering in the wind, rock formations, oceanic crustations, topographical land mass, moon surface and interstellar hydrogen gas 7,000 light years away... the list could be endless. They are all related in their visual design. Not only are living organisms linked but the entire fabric of our existence is so intertwined, as if coded and reformatted into different applications.

Scrinked strives to portray the human element of visual consistencies in this universal daisychain by adding language. Wurds, bent from social and political commentary, co-exist with personal expression creating a window into the subconscious. Scrinked, (a term derived from scraped ink) is put into action with a thick consistency of vegetable-based, offset printers ink applied, manipulated and selectively scraped off. Incorporating text of prose, poetry, aural found-objects and third-party conversations, elements are overlaid, underlayed and in a deluge of typographical chaos.
-- thanks to Kevin Bird

 

+++ HYPNAGOGiC +++

Hypnagogic state of mind - a transitional period encountered before falling asleep. A term which best describes the inspiration behind my paintings. Though different from the actual dream-state, the promise of fantasy and illusion is coupled with our existing reality. We carry with us part of the thought and experiences of the day, en route to the full sub(un)conscious experience of dreaming.

Most of these paintings were produced without realising what the term Hypnagogic meant, even while experiencing it. Staring at paintings in-progress, sometimes for hours, I noticed familiar imagery, recognizable from my, unbeknownst to me, Hypnagogic state. Bringing them out quickly with pencil edges, some to be later embellished, others left in a skeletal state. Depicting living organisms borne from the texture and colour of paint are the interpretation of my pre-dream state. One could claim I was daydreaming my way into painting the Hypnagogic Works.

 

+++ 2000-2001 PAiNTiNGS +++

When I paint, time is divided between impulsive, free-form, gestural strokes and more time-consuming details of finer lines, text and illustration. With no pre-determined composition in mind, images eventually appear from the shadows of texture to be integrated with soundbites of recent conversation. Through use of text I find an outlet for spontaneous prose and fragments of thought with stories developing in a stream of consciousness. Although a message is often the result, it is uncovered through a process rather than intent. There are times when pouncing on the work seems to be the only option but more often than not there is a staring contest between myself and the painting. A tough battle of brushstrokes vs. contemplation. Personal issues, relationships and social commentary are themes which emerge unfettered in a strictly square format.

I paint to record the moments of clarity, synchronicity and harmony in my life; deliver to the observer, a vision rich with foresight, prose and emotion; build a visual sanctuary with absolute acceptance; simultaneously complicate and simplify; reflect society's urgency to produce, reproduce and mass-produce; create responses of anxiety and delight, confusion and lucidity.