Through my paintings I explore the impossibility of being separate from what we encounter, both as a body in an environment and when looking. You never ‘just’ see something – visual perception is always a case of you looking at something and that something looking back at you. Also, the way in which you approach an object or any situation is dependent upon and influenced by whatever pre-existing knowledge or ‘angle on the world’ that we already possess. In a sense, the act of looking, and one’s own assumptions determine what object, thing, or space is.
In my work I use gloss paint, its reflective qualities make the viewer aware that they are looking at an object. The shiny surface creates a disturbance of the notion of one-way vision, a kind of barrier. For me this is a metaphor for how one can never see the thing that one is looking at in its entirety.
I am interested in exploring the gap between what you see and what is actually there. There is a paradox between knowledge gained through the senses and actuality. For instance, while there is a sense of depth and space within my paintings, the drips on the edges of the canvas remind the viewer that the works are essentially composed of material on a flat surface.
For me, painting stems from a kind of uncertainty about the nature of the real – that what you see may not be what’s there, or that it may be all that there is there: it involves a rethinking and questioning of what is taken for granted in terms of seeing.
Education
Current – MA Fine Art, City & Guilds of London Art School
Turps Banana Studio Programme (2012 – 2013)
City & Guilds of London Art School (2008 – 2011)
BA Hons Fine Art Painting: First Class Degree
Camberwell College of Art & Design (2007 – 2008)
Foundation Diploma
Projects
2013
⇒ Co-founder of artist led, peripatetic initiative, The Juncture: http://www.thejuncture.co.uk
Group Exhibitions
2019
Creekside Open selected by Sacha Craddock
Creekside Open selected by Brian Griffith
2018
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
2017
Steal The Show, Bentinck Street, Glasgow
2016
Anthology, Charlie Smith London
Europa, Transition Gallery
Visions of Abstraction, Gallery Elena Shchukina
Flesh in Focus, Brocket Gallery
2015
Art Car Boot Fair
Greater Depths: Redefining Watercolour, Brocket Gallery
Vault Festival
2014
Wells Art Contemporary
Best of Bow Arts, selected by Mark Wallinger
Art Car Boot Fair, London, Liverpool, Folkestone
Tete a Tete, Cannes
Preamble, The Juncture, Unit 3
First Come, First Served, Lion and Lamb
2013
Freeze 13, The Mayor’s Parlour
⇒ Turps Banana Studio Programme Final Show, Vigo Gallery
Turps Banana Studio Exhibition, V22 Exhibition Space
Artist of the Day, Flowers Gallery
Art Car boot fair, Brick Lane
Turps Banana Interim Show, Mayor’s Parlour
First Come, First Served, Lion and Lamb
2012
House Rules, Simmons & Simmons
Victoria Park Salon, 1, 2 & 3
2011
City & Guilds Degree Show
2010
VAULT, Lambeth Accord
Solo Exhibitions
Sunset Strips and Stains, Brocket Gallery, 2016
Behind Your Burly, Town House Spitalfields, 2014
⇒ The Currell Collection, October 2012
Collections
⇒ Currell
Awards
The Worshipful Company of Painter Stainers: 2011