My work has always focused on materials and their properties and tend be categorized as a midpoint between painting and sculpture.
My work throughout the last few years has been playful, colorful and generally focuses on the material in its purest of states. The work is inspired by the external environment and our relationship, as mankind, with artificial materials.
Please tell us about your final year project
The work for the final degree show has kept the materials in their purest of states, exploring their visual and physical qualities against one another. I am obsessed with the exchange between glossy and matt surfaces, rough against smooth, rubberized texture against canvas and the different visual qualities one piece involves. The work aims to engage with the viewer, tempting them to touch, play or even want to eat it. The materials beneath the skin of the PVC are easily recognizable, encouraging connotations to be made with the home or sterile environments. Its with the emotional response of the viewer and the temptation to touch it, that work gets its playful nature.
The desire to almost eat the work might be due to the use of bright colouring, the plasticised “wet” look that covers the materials of the intrinsic relationship between food and vacuum packing. Vacuum packing sucks the air out to leave the form of the object or material that in its rawest form, exposing all of its content.
The work is a celebration of form and the relationship it has with materiality. The bulbous, abstract forms are non-representational but do intend to suggest things in the real world. Their playful compositions relate to that of children’s toys as the work’s limbs appear to fall to the floor, interacting with the space around it. It is intended that the viewer moves freely throughout the space, walking around the protruding wall pieces, enabling you to see the work from every angle.
How have you found your course/time at Brighton?
I’ve really loved by time studying at Brighton University. The course firstly introduced me to a variety of painting mediums and ways in which we can introduce these to our practice. My work often holds a close relationship to traditional painting and has related to architecture in the past. The weekly historical lectures has helped me to develop my understanding of painting and work throughout history.
The city of Brighton is a vibrant, inspiring place to grow as an artist, and the city’s relationship with new, artificial materials such as plastics, has inspired my recent practice. The city’s combination of old and new architecture along with its relation to manmade and natural materials plays a huge role in my developing practice. Brighton being so close to London makes going to exhibitions easily assessable, allowing me to stay on top of upcoming work and shows.
What are your plans after Graduation?
My work explores installation, and works with the space in often untraditional and contemporary ways and I take pride in the way my work compliments each other. Although being a practicing artist sounds like inviting way of life, I want to use my skills as an installation artist and look towards going down a curation route or working within a curation team for a gallery.
I also aim to work with young artists of whom are trying to get their work known by helping organise exhibitions and finding unusual, unconventional cheap spaces for them to work with.
Find out more about Fine Art Painting
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