Tongue-Root

This is painting about painting, while also suggesting things that might be known to us: part-objects from the world inside and outside. There is a distilling of forms located within the repertoire of abstract tradition, combining contradictory motives from such historical languages as Art Informel and Minimalism, or borrowing graphic codes from the cultural industries. Here formal elements fit together as possibilities like a staged tragedy, where form and placement become plots whose actors of colour, texture, fast and slow gesture may encourage a narrative in the viewer.

What is ground and what is figure is questioned where the spaces between or the structure beneath are revealed by leaving the silk support bare, forcing the wall beneath to become a part of the completing picture. They are objects in our space rather than an imaginary ‘window’ into another world, and yet a narrative between the forms does begin to emerge.