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'Tragelaphus strepsiceros'

Watercolour

120cm x90cm

2019

In my practise I investigate how the Anthropocene attempts to examine, compare  and rediscover “other” connections of ourselves in relation to the natural environment.

 

Part of this research includes a comparison between Western and non-Western understandings that interprets the natural realm.

I aim to use these multiple perspectives to investigate what relationship can be found between existing belief systems rooted in colonialism and what affects it has on the natural environment.

My practise conveys a non- linear narrative linked to colonialism, post colonialism and corruption, a speculative process that although uses reference to current social, political or historical culture, depicts a world in which indications of specific place or time are absent.

The structures of power and hypocrisy lay bare injustices to the individual and environmental rationale.

 

The apparent dis-connectivity and connectivity are foregrounded issues in my work and using disconcerting shifts of colour, recognisable and abstract shape, form and texture together, form a composition that highlight both the hope and despair of environmental and social awareness. 

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Detail of ''Tragelaphus strepsiceros'

Watercolour

120cm x90cm

2019

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Key Themes

 

  • Wild animals 

  • Vibrations/ movement

  • Interconnectedness/disconnectedness 

  • Potplant 

  • Corruption/liberation

  • Water

  • Colonialism/post- colonialism

Detail of 'Panthera tigris'

Watercolour

56cm x 76cm

2019

aslan arc

As my work developed I have become more and more interested in the notion of animism, its context within a contemporary framework and especially its relativity to the critical issues of Ecology.

 

It the language on words such as environment/nature/culture and morals that become speculative in relation to my research that form the basis for this conceptual enquiry.

 

Authors such as Aslan (2017) would argue that the idea of animism synthesises the beliefs that there is a common essence — soul — that binds everything within the Creation, human or non-human. 

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Detail of 'Panthera pardus'

Watercolour

56cm x 76cm

2019

Detail of 'Panthera pardus'

Watercolour

56cm x 76cm

2019

How does the way in which we each personally think and feel about ourselves have an impact on natural matter itself?

 

I recycle, I don't purchase any products that have palm oil even though I have only seen an orangutang happily imprisoned behind bars.

 

I donate to Green peas, I became vegetarian and finally vegan. I now live off perfectly organic fresh lettuce and kale greens cleansed in purifying Evian water flown in fresh from Jamaica to London and delivered straight to my door along with my 100% natural detoxifying facial serum made from the rare Thai root that grows on the banks of the eternal youth fountain, and for £50 more I get an authentic handmade in China, Buddha sculpture doll as well as the chance to win a  five star trip to the Beverly Hills Safari of Africa where I can get the once in a lifetime opportunity to take a photograph of me looking gorgeous next to the Zulu warrior holding the leather leash of his pet cheetah, beast of the savannah who he managed to out run, catch and tame as a pet.

 

I am still hungry, I didn't win a trip to the Beverly Hills in Africa, I didn't get a picture with the Zulu nor the cheetah, I am now low on cash, rent is due on Monday, I have reacted to the serum and have red blotches all over my face, I have to work double shifts to cover debt. I am freaking out and now have to take psychiatric medication to cope with the stress and anxiety… do you like my new shoes? “

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'Panthera pardus'

Watercolour

56cm x 76cm

2019

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How would animism and its origin assist in the approach to address critical issues of environment? 

In the book ‘ God a Human History of Religion’ (2017) the author Reza Aslan attempts to understand the relationship our ancestors had with their environment.

 

Using the example of ancient rock art, these paintings resemble our ancestors animistic belief that suggest more than the mundane, what they saw, hunted and lived with, but rather emphasises an interconnectedness and “spirit” that binds ideas on the environment with all that is living. — I am not suggesting that we need to go back to living in caves but how could one adopt this ancient spirituality in the dynamics of the contemporary world. 

Detail of 'Panthera tigris'

Watercolour

56cm x 76cm

2019

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'Panthera tigris'

Watercolour

56cm x 76cm

2019

As time went on these beliefs evolved from the ideas of interconnected spirit to the humanised versions of mythologies, religions and science that disconnect us from our fellow nonhuman habitants putting us humans at the top of the food chain and separate from environment.

 

Today we are living in an era of ecological crisis which Bruno Latour in his book ‘Facing Gaia (2017) describes how the physical framework in which we live has become unstable and links the word Gaia as a force being at once mythical, scientific,  political, and probably religious.

 

Latour also discusses possible links between humans and nonhumans, the intrusion of nature and sciences into politics and the distribution of power that perhaps has links between climate and government.

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Visual and Aesthetic influences

In my recent development I am interested in the work of artist Ali Banisadr.

His approach to abstraction evokes connotations to displacement and is rich in colour that somehow gives way to anarchy but also suggests violence and corruption.

"The Game of Taming",

2018,

Oil on Linen,

66x88 inches

Ali Banisadr

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Another influence is Swedish artist Emma Larson. Although I am not that interested in her work from a conceptual viewpoint I am more interested the way she blends and bleeds her watercolour. I enjoy the way she is brave to apply intense colour and the way she weaves animal marks/skin/print into organic abstract forms.

I have also been researching Japanese screen painting.

Untitled

Watercolour

2019

Emma Larson

Donna Harraway in her book ‘Staying with the trouble’ (2016) explores the notion of extinction in relation to profit and power and the unequal consequences for the poor and the rich as well as the vast burdens imposed on earth by the rich compared to the poor and even worse consequences for nonhumans everywhere.

 

Harraway examines the “otherness” of nonwestern communities and has learnt that “it matters what ideas we use to think other ideas, what quality of thoughts think thoughts, what descriptions describe descriptions.” 

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Detail of untitled

Watercolour

56cm x 76cm

2019

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Untitled

Watercolour

29cm x 37cm

2019

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Untitled

Watercolour

56cm x 76cm

2019

Looking at the works of the artist Marc Dion as well as the Oceania (2018) exhibition at the Royal Academy and the analysis of western Enlightenment towards the representations of nature today (in a museum context) I find quite problematic in comparison to the first hand experience referring to empirical ways of understanding versus the rational.

 

Thus, in my practice, my watercolour paintings, attempt to translate the factual experience of nature and wildlife (from the personal perspective) along with the contemporary social demands in a way thats distorts, corrupts, liberates and connects the ideals of “vital materiality” (Bennet, 2010)

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Detail of untitled

Watercolour

56cm x 76cm

2019

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Detail of Untitled

Watercolour

56cm x 76cm

2019

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Presentation

 

A challenging question for me has been how to present work on paper?

 

  1. Format- 640g/840g paper 

  2. Stretch paper - Although it is a heavy weighted paper I also stretch it out onto wooden panels to avoid buckling and to keep paper flat due to the large amounts of water I apply to the surface while working.

  3. In earlier works I have removed paper off board and attached finished work to the gallery wall using magnets. This was not ideal as the magnet interfered visibly with the work. I also realised that the larger I began to work I was no longer able to keep the paper absolutely flat as it now needed a back support. 

  4. I then questioned if framing was the better option? I didn't like the idea of viewing the work behind glass (even a high quality non reflective glass) as I feel that glass forms a barrier that somewhat gets in the way of the vulnerability of the work especially that they are oversized watercolours.

  5. Finally I decided to keep the work stretch on wooden panels that I built a simple wooden box frame around the panel. Framing the work but without the glass. The overall effect also relating to the notion of wooden crating/ live cargo, paintings hung on gallery wall.

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BBC's The Painted Dog

Watercolour

56cm x 76cm

2019

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Detail of BBC's The Painted Dog

Watercolour

56cm x 76cm

2019

Early this year I completed  'BBC's The Painted Dog'' for the Postopia exhibition at the Ugly Duck Gallery. 

I had to work to a specific brief that explored the notion of technology and how it is referenced in my painting.

I researched the digital landscape of technology and was specifically interested with its influence on our relationship with that which is natural and wild. For example how we come to know our natural world through the recorded lens of advanced cameras and videography together with a scripted narrative to inform us of our natural world, and the better the technology the better the ability to record to later transform and become known as wildlife documentaries.

 

In todays society advanced technology allows for these documentaries to be recorded and viewed in outstanding colour and picture quality.

I was interested in the context of these documentaries and how technology affects our relationship between the virtually real and the real. 

 

During an interview with artist Marc Dion and Michel Van Praet about the position of the Natural history museum in Paris, Dion discusses issues on conservation and ecology and the role of the museum in relation to species extinction and the impoverishment of the environment.  

One of the issues being that the natural objects on display in the museum not only create a dialogue that can be educational and scientific but also create a platform for theatrics that become a form of entertainment for the viewer. 

 

Similarly, with reference to BBC’s David Attenborough HD quality documentaries, one envisions the purpose of wildlife documentaries in society - is it scientific and educational, an archive to record that which will be extinct, a medium of communication and a means of entertainment. 

Using BBC’s David Attenborough documentaries as a reference, my work attempts to create a postopian landscape which envisions a non-linear narrative that creates a dialogue between the screen and an African wild dog,   

 

My work included reference to the screen itself  The narrative envisions a story between the screen that gaves life to 3dimensional visions of an African wild dog in the savannahs of the living room.

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'Inside the inglorious house of the fabulous Lord M'

56cmx76cm

watercolour

2019

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Detail- 'Inside the inglorious house of the fabulous Lord M'

56cmx76cm

watercolour

2019

In my research following that of colonisation and specifically attached to a western relationship with nature -(being a rational and scientific collection of understanding and superiority over environment and species), my paintings aim to interrogate this way of understanding and attempt to explore in a disconnected manner, an interconnected relation between this western way of knowing and “other” way of understanding. 

 

For example, in the exhibition SCHILDBACH XYLOTHEQUE AT DOCUMENTA (13) IN KASSEL , Marc Dion reconstructs the museum using a rational framework borrowed from Enlightenment studies of art and science. Dion introduces the ‘corps tree’ to symbolise our human unease with death and at the same time attempts to promote death as essential part of nature, as well as an interconnected process rather than a scientific thing to be disected and observed. 

 

This interconnected process to all human and non human beings is one of the aspects I intend to further explore in my paintings both from a contemporary western framework and non western. 

The non-linear narrative I am exploring in my works can also relate to author Jaques Ranciere theory in what he calls as the “creative destruction” of the representational regime.

 

The core of representational regime, and its hierarchy of life forms , which had defined the space of fiction and commanded its organic unity, had simultaneously given way to a space of sensible coexistence of all individuals, things and situations- what Ranciere calls an aesthetic democratism.

 

Ranciere argues it is not about the ontological status of the real - whether ‘the real is really real’ but instead is about the texture of this real. And the texture of this real is not about analysis but rather about the life lived by those who inhabit it. This texture undoes the hierarchies of old fiction and thereby operates in an effect of equality- a de-hierarchized one. 

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Key Developments

 

My practice has developed significantly from unit to unit.

 

Unit 3

Context- Animism, colonialism/post-colonialism, corruption/liberation, wildlife

Medium- watercolour, water (as a medium in relation to its political context)

Influences- Latour, Harraway, Bennet, Larson,  

 

Unit 2

Context- Ideas on hierarchy, anarchy, colonialism/post-colonialism, wildlife

Medium- watercolour, oil paint 

Influences- Marc Dion, Jaques Ranciere, Donna Harraway

 

Unit 1

Context -Ideas of psycho-geography and the urban safari/wildlife 

Medium- experimenting with ink, watercolour and video 

Influences- Marina Abramovic 

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'Cave Scene 1’ 

Oils on board

60cmx42cm

2018

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'Cave Scene 2’ 

Oils on board

60cmx42cm

2018

 During Unit 2 I began to investigate a continuity and non- linear dialect using the notion of animal symbolism in relation to a social understanding of hierarchy.  

 

I experimented with oil colour. As it is a recent medium for me, I realised that I may lack experience with the medium itself in understanding certain techniques and methods of use. 

 

In relation to style I was researching works by artist Cecily Brown whose use of composition and especially texture is something that influenced my oil paintin. 

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'Cave Scene 3' 

Oils on board

60cmx42cm

2018

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Detail - 'Cave Scene 1,2,3' 

Oils on board

60cmx42cm

2018

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untitled

60cmx42cm

Watercolour

2018

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Quite a bit of the imagery used in my paintings relates to that of a hunt- predator and prey and the hunted. This imagery attempts to communicate meanings of human and animal superiority, dominance, hierarchy and fragility (survival of the fittest), as well as the natural cycle of dying, living and an interconnected relationship between species.

The use of colour is in my work is chosen intuitively as I find myself working with bright intensity and vibrance.

 

It is also a binding factor that I use to connect the spaces in between the imagery that suggest a continuous web of continuity and connectives. 

 

Author Donna Harraway explains this connectivity as mortal critters entwined in myriad unfinished configurations of places, times, matters and meanings- the essence that binds all that lives. 

 

Most of the imagery that I work with is depictions of animals which I use symbolically and with reference to Harraway’s text, some of which explores the consequences of human behaviour in relation to profit and power and the unequal consequences for the poor and the rich and even worse consequences for non humans everywhere.

Detail- 'untitled'

60cmx42cm

Watercolour

2018

In relation to contextual style I was interested with artist Jules De Balincourt’s paintings  and the way he engages with colour. 

At certain parts I became interested in the way Balincourt creates dual intimations of creation and destruction such as 'Tree Portal', 2016.

In this painting he uses an 'explosion' of radiating colour where the cause and effect seem to remain mysterious.

 An example of Jules De Balincourt's 

'Tree Portal'

oils

2016

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'The curious case of Michael Heppingworth'

30cmx42cm

Watercolour and ink

2018

In my earlier works I used watercolour  in a far more controlled way but still maintained a strong intensity of colour built up in layer after layer. 

 

Painting,  'The curious case of Michael Heppinworth' now does relate entirely to the concept of my more recent paintings, as the style was more illustrated and focused in a centred position as a mixed medium using ink. 

However, this was the starting point leading me to my later works in relation to social awareness and our environment and species. 

 

For example in the painting ‘The curious case of Michael Heppingworth’, I started to question the role of the individual in relation to nature and begun interrogating and breaking up the notion of the human figure with  a strong link to animals, suggesting a connection with the essence of all living in spirit. 

This is where I began exploring ideas of animal symbolism in relation to hierarchy and more importantly leading me to the de-hierarchy. 

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'Are we the heavy mountain that we have to carry?"

110cmx90cm

mixed media

2018

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'I am The Heavy Mountain  that we have to carry'

 

A collaboration with fellow artist Magda experimenting using different mediums in response to the brief for crypt show at St Pancreas Church in Euston London,

 

I thought it was a great opportunity to explore methods of collaboration with fellow artist Magda Gluszak-Holeksa. In relation to the space we both decided to explore another medium 

 

Together in preparation and with in a contemporary framework we contextualised the idea of faith itself, the church/building and what it represents in todays society

We came up with the idea of an altar, much like a pyramid and began using this context and some sketches to begin our development.

Collaborating and still including themes from each of our own practise we included the idea of hierarchy and uncertainty. 

 

We used antique wooden stools which we sanded down to its raw form as a building block to construct an irregular shape of a pyramid. We balanced one stool on top the other that which was very fragile and could easily we knocked over.

 

We cast translucent resin bricks as well as had acrylic bricks fabricated to use as the actual bricks in the pyramid.

 

We also cast a resin top for the first stool as we intended to put a light under the sculpture that would permeate though the entire sculpture and reflect off the other resin bricks that symbolised an inner light.

 

While we were documenting our process and reflecting back on the videos we made, we then at last minute decided that the videos included with the piece gave it more depth and brought the piece from still to in motion, giving it life and a moving perspective.

 

We decided to project the moving video onto the sculpture in juxtaposition to the piece and ran it off a continuous loop for the duration of the show.

 

Reflecting back on the the process, although we faced challenges working in a new medium through much trial and error as well as it being a collaboration where each of us had different ideas and perspectives, it was however,  accepting these differences and different work methods that unified our concept. 

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 'Judder 1'

 ink 

12inch x 12inch

2017

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 'Judder 2'

 ink 

12inch x 12inch

2017

At the beginning stages of the course I started exploring the notion of Safari-ing, wandering, mapping.  My work explored how certain states of mind and the environment relate and communicate between one another. 

 

My main concern regarded the awareness of thoughts and the intangible patterns they create, a combination of vibrating colour and light navigated through particular environments in a consciously meditative state as a desperate attempt to free the self from the dystopia that is its reality.

 

Trying to understand the complex paradigm of thought and awareness, within a visual headspace, my work attempted to unpack what happens when you become aware of the quality of one’s own thoughts and their power to shape and map out the physical nature of the self, its environment and the situations it experiences.At this stage I was influenced by the work of Marina Abramovic.

 

My work also connects ephemeral elements of wildlife species in relation to human qualities of individual character and imagines an abstract vision of hope, not knowing exactly what that is, but ultimately seeking subliminal contentment in the every day and the self

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untitled

 ink and watercolour 

12inch x 12inch

2017

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