ABOUT
Ranging in size from small wall-based pieces to large site-specific constructed drawings, I make work which references a number of subjects. These include the landscape genre; viewing display strategies; japanese spatial aesthetics; and minimalism. I am especially interested in an expanded approach to drawing through the use of various combinations of surfaces and materials and space performs a prominent role in conjunction with the representational aspects of traditional drawing. Landscape (in particular, expansive, snow-covered, disorientating terrains) provides a starting point and line plays a dominant part. The materials I use include paper, thread, wire, graphite, watercolour, acrylic, wood, foamboard and tape and my work often moves between 2d and 3d. I am also motivated by the idea of drawing-as-construction in search of a 'habitat'.
My ongoing aesthetic response to landscape has come to centre around the manner in which dispersed, depicted fragments of line and mark-making can be united through the viewer’s perception to provide a ‘proposition’ of landscape. The use of the horizon as a contextual locator; perceptual processes (including focused and peripheral vision); & spatial ordering/perspective systems all underlie it. I am concerned with how the interplay between surface, materiality, mark-making and suggested illusion can combine to create a sensation of transience and perceptual ambiguity. I deliberately strive for an air of temporary occupation and fragile attachment. A concern with the perilous state of the natural environment pervades my work.
More recently I've extended my investigations through the medium of experimental animation. Produced with a hand-drawn aesthetic, the short 'vignette' pieces I make are deliberately unyielding as to their precise nature, defying immediate comprehension. In a digital age filled with images, audiences often view with a distracted eye. My intention is to create a viewing process that challenges the quick glance which I do through the exploration of perceptual thresholds (eg in motion/standing still; depth/flatness; representation/abstraction) where one mode of experience begins and another ends. Attention is also drawn to both the individual content of frames as well as to the overall sequences.
My ongoing aesthetic response to landscape has come to centre around the manner in which dispersed, depicted fragments of line and mark-making can be united through the viewer’s perception to provide a ‘proposition’ of landscape. The use of the horizon as a contextual locator; perceptual processes (including focused and peripheral vision); & spatial ordering/perspective systems all underlie it. I am concerned with how the interplay between surface, materiality, mark-making and suggested illusion can combine to create a sensation of transience and perceptual ambiguity. I deliberately strive for an air of temporary occupation and fragile attachment. A concern with the perilous state of the natural environment pervades my work.
More recently I've extended my investigations through the medium of experimental animation. Produced with a hand-drawn aesthetic, the short 'vignette' pieces I make are deliberately unyielding as to their precise nature, defying immediate comprehension. In a digital age filled with images, audiences often view with a distracted eye. My intention is to create a viewing process that challenges the quick glance which I do through the exploration of perceptual thresholds (eg in motion/standing still; depth/flatness; representation/abstraction) where one mode of experience begins and another ends. Attention is also drawn to both the individual content of frames as well as to the overall sequences.
