about

Whether we like it or not, our notions of aging, death and dying are media-taught. We are bombarded by images of perpetual youth and the consistent promise that with the right products the inevitable deterioration of old age can be deferred. What we see on television, in adverts, magazines, the movies and online, would have us believe that our life can be extended almost without limit, nature constantly reminds us that the opposite is true. The lessons we can learn from nature about our own mortality are filled with a set of surprising and often visually startling possibilities.

In my painting I draw inspiration from my close observations of various life-cycles, with a particular focus on plants, flowers and moulds. The great fascination for me is the way that each of these life forms goes through different phases from growing and perfecting itself, to slowly decaying and returning back into the ground or surface it came from.

Each flower, plant or mould will manifest itself with slightly distinct features: each one unfolding a unique and often overlooked and individual drama of colour and form.

Each painting represents, for me, the refreshing of a new and distinct life-cycle, which continues posthumously from the previous painting. In this respect the progression and individual aesthetic of each of my paintings draws on spectacles in danger of being utterly obliterated and obscured by the shallow imagery of this modern, perpetual youth-obsessed culture we currently live in.