ECCLESIASTICAL BACKGROUND TO MY WORK
My work across my time at Gray’s School of Art has often been born of themes relating to the Liturgy, Eucharist, and other Biblical events and ideas. In my second year I made a 7ft painting of a church interior with exaggerated qualities of brightly coloured walls and a ceiling twice as high as you would find in most normal church buildings, a layered triptych based upon the ritual actions of Serving, and an 8ft high image of a cross, thick with paint and oozing influences from Baselitz and Bacon.
In third year the idea to pique my interest was that of sanctuary. I was curious about the space a sanctuary can hold and create, and how it can represent thought pockets and the places in our minds that we hold as our own personal sanctuaries. I made small maquettes and drawings which developed into paintings of strange, cupboard-like spaces, dark in interior and set against light grounds where the paint was allowed to roam its own path, falling finally to its rest at the bottom of the canvas.
This developed into my final year work where my interest was in the idea of the interaction
between the pictorial space of the painting and the space the viewer creates in their mind when prompted by the images in the painting, and how space can be used to instil certain feelings within the viewer.
The presentation of a path within the space, one that doesn’t entirely make sense or appear to have an easy route of travel forces the viewer to consider other means with which to scale the landscape of the painting, and in turn, the space it has created in their mind, it is how this journey is tackled I have found interesting. When presented with a staircase that appears to neither be leading up nor down, with twists and turns and steps seemingly too steep or awkward to climb, the viewer must begin to consider alternative routes. By straying from the given path, the viewer is able to find ways to deal with the issues presented, by trusting that the unknown surrounding area in fact is not empty at all, but is instead steadfast, and is able to carry them beyond the rickety stairs and through the holes and tunnels into what lies beyond the painting.
Ideas of repetition, ritual and symbolism have always been a keen influence on my work, and it is through mark making and use of bold shapes with often cryptic appearances that I manifest these ideas.
Something I find curious about painting is how the visual language is able to speak back to you. There are often moments in which I step back and look at what I am working on and see something I was not consciously aware of at the time of creation. The fractured lens motifs seen in several of my paintings and countless numbers of my drawings are a perfect example of this.
Upon reflection, these fragmented shapes were no longer just shapes, but fractured host wafers, broken before me. I find that this kind of imagery often has ways of showing itself in my work, even when I am not consciously considering it. It was a symbolism I had not considered at the time of making these particular works, but when it presented itself to me, it was clear that it had surfaced to remind me of the place much of the idea of my work came from.
as published in 'Northern Light' Issue 90 Oct. '15 / 'S.A.T. Nav' Oct. '15 / 'Focus' Dec '15-Jan '16