Statement
My subjects are everyday, colourful types I see around and about on public transportation and other public areas. They are what some would refer to as “undesirables”.
My interest lies in discovering the result of displacing my subjects in contexts foreign to them. I have focused on the traditional genre of the rustic pastoral subject in a landscape setting, and switched it to the contemporary urban environment of everyday life in the form of portrait.
My painting method is influenced by the compositions and colour palette’s of Matisse creating a conflicts in figure/ground relationships, and colour associations. I have adapted, to some extent, his flat style of pictorial reduction, producing works with joyful and sunny dispositions. As Matisse has, I have also concerned myself with light, turning to the decorative patterning of textiles, floral designs and figure as a means of creation. Unlike Matisse, I have given my subjects identities with individual characteristics and expressions. I am interested in the current condition of my subjects and wish to create portraits with the “thoughts and soul of the person” always present.
My characters extend themselves to entire pictorial surface. They become decorative in nature while simultaneously conveying humanity and what really exists in front of me as I observe, photograph and sketch them. What results is a bright, pure, visual harmony of colour directly contrasting with the purely dishevelled existence of the men I portray.