Once there was and once there was not

MOTIVATION

Once there was, and once there was not, interrogates mankind’s unnatural relationship with their natural environment. This work highlights our uncertain relationship with our environment. The things we cover ourselves with both literally and metaphorically to disguise ourselves within the artifice of our ‘natural’ habitat. It animalizes the human into a carnivore of status and possession. In my head oil paint is natural- it has life. I contrast these with hard industrial varnishes and high-gloss paints. These paints are dead. I paint figures that are daunted by the reality of their surroundings. They seek, they worry, they protect. They are all encompassing and are encumbered by their own fears. They are flawed heroes and they exist in all of us, and it is THAT awkward human-ness that is at the essence of this exhibition.