The
figures and faces in my paintings emerge and fade into paint, collage and
words. This painting employs a lot of collage, it seemed to build the structure
of the piece, around and within the painted face. I don’t rely on physical
likeness but instead paint from the inside out; revealing a sense of the thread
of our inner lives. From the personal to the universal.

The red in
this painting was the moment it began to come together. Intuitively led, the
application of the red with the blue areas seemed to make sense of the whole
piece, giving the collage areas their own space, feeling like they’re
reflections on glass, or inner glimpses of light. Paint marks over layers of
collaged paper construct a kind of emotional landscape, somewhere memories and
thoughts can be half-formed but fully felt. I am obsessed by the fluidity of
our inner narratives and continuing reactions to the world around us, something
flowing below the surface of daily life.

It felt
to me as though there’s a meeting of Nature and the man-made world in this
painting, the raw energy of the red bringing a natural force to it; a lifeblood
of love and magic. Maybe a trace of the raw human energy that urban dwellings
and societies are built upon.