For me there is a philosophical purpose to remaining alert, producing work in an imaginal yet real context, constructing or observing a new reality from reality. This presents a multifaceted perception of the now, a re-awakening of the world I live in. The intention is to hold myself in a state of openness, of re-purposing, in order to question everything and see as if for the first time. The images are intended to produce similar moments of question in the viewer, perhaps recognising elements oscillating between actual and imaginal reality. For me alertness means adaptability, ready for change, or a new reality.
I use phenomena such as plastic toys, torches, cling film, steam, rock and dust to make installations, sets, drawings and photographic illusions. I’m interested in the tension that can be set up between objects, natural materials and elemental substances – and how we perceive them. Engaging and experiencing them sets up conversations; unveiling a sense of potential dislocation and re-seeing for the viewer. I use rituals (sensory stimulation and deprivation) to enable access to subtle worlds. The artwork manifesting through this process is a balance of opposites, an oscillation between darkness and light, natural and man-made, inner and outer landscapes. I’m fascinated by ancestral knowledge and by routes to reconnection with it. I like to play with ambiguity to enable open responses, taking the names away from things. It is important for me to maintain a discourse between the instinctive and the rational/intellectual, when this balance is honoured; we understand the significance of everything. “Yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth comes to the top” Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own. |