About
Recently in my art practice I have become interested in the versatility of readily available materials: those that can be recycled or re-purposed.
In my art I consider notions of how to construct and evoke ideas of humour, mystery, the ethereal or the evocative, from what is at hand. This can trigger creative ideas, sometimes suggested by the materiality of the found object.
The use of such materials is also a reference to the frugal resourcefulness of past generations when the cost of production meant little was discarded. This seems pertinent to both art making and our contemporary culture with escalating landfill sites, finite natural resources and global warming.
Such considerations are influential in my art making with its diverse themes and materials including ‘drawings’ of subjects in fabric remnants; journals and picture books composed of everyday ephemera and hand-crafted art works; second-hand or borrowed clothes used to create film noir style images; and compositions consisting of multiple layers combining collage, painting and hand-crafted miniatures etc. to form images of memory.
Each concept commences either as a sketch or something akin to an illustrated storyboard frame, as in the film noir works. In the case of the latter, these outline the model's position, areas of light and dark, the angle of the shot or perspective and any other information necessary to build a compelling scene. Constructing is the next step or as the Conceptualist, Marcel Duchamp, advocated to make the invisible, visible! [Ref].
Following construction, my work is then disassembled. This means the physical nature of my art is transient, as it is either staged (and includes myself), or the subject matter is constructed and then where possible, the materials are recycled. So a photographic record of the creative concept's physical existence is essential. This process involves the technical photographic talents of Warwick von Bock and the art direction details as specified by the artist's storyboard/sketches.
My concepts examine a range of themes including identity, transience and nostalgia with elements inspired by the work of others including Marcel Duchamp, Robert Rauschenberg, Gerhard Richter, Anna Carey, Elaine Campaner, Margaret Ackland and Cindy Sherman, to name a few.
