My paintings have a dream logic to them. Specific moments caught in time. They are filled with the tension of the moment just before and the moment just to come. Deliberately theatrical - provocative, disturbing, humorous - they explore the specificity of human emotions. They are housed within a style that plays with the tradition of classical portraiture - subverting its formality into a new idea.
I paint with strong, bold, graphic colours that lie just below and above the surface of nature. I'm obsessed with detail and painting flesh in a way that makes it seem alive
- the skin transparent. I use realism further to freeze a moment in time.My paintings have been described as "gothic portraiture" and "magic realism in paint". Keeping with the idea of the theatrical, I see the paintings' subjects as characters in a "dream drama" as much as models. I seek to show them from the inside out - understanding and feeling their positions - joy, stuggle, pain. Yet, where the emotional landscape is real, the physical landscape is surreal, it relies heavily on metaphor and my personal iconography.
Working on "halo"
2007
