My work is rooted in building on the tradition of Western Figurative Art within a contemporary context. I am concerned with the notion of promise that continually eludes. A latency pledging comprehension of our existence; life and death. It is an ineffable notion that hovers somewhere out of reach, and in my view is at best explained metaphorically. I try to access this metaphorical level through the narrative . The stuff of paint and its application also pull the viewer’s more primordial faculties into the narrative. I intend integration of these two components where the paint and the illusion have a symbiotic relationship. Figurative representation of our physical environment acknowledges recognition of the familiar as a doorway into the metaphorical through emblem.
In a recent series of paintings I have represented a horse under anaesthesia in the operating theatre. The viewer simultaneously identifies with the bound unconscious animal and the consciousness of the surgeons. The vicarious nature of the viewer’s desire to experience is encouraged by the life and death context on which the beast pivots.