OIL PAINT \ MIXED MEDIA

When it comes to abstract oil paintings, I tend to lean towards imbalance. I love asymmetry. I love detail. And I love that detail inferred, but maybe obscured, or even totally removed. Architects call it ‘void space’. Artists prefer ‘negative space’. I am fond of that word ‘void’ though. Empty. Removed. Non-existent.

My paintings often represent both movement and self-restriction. They are a collection of layers as well as different methods of art making. The layers encompass bright swathes of sugar-sweet colours in crisscrossing arcs, using my body as a fulcrum.

These swipes are outlined using fine brushes or marker pens, and shellac is frequently used as a way of curtailing these excessively happy colours: a wash of resin dims and unites them; the reduction of carnival-like tones creates a sense of earthiness.

Deletion is often the final step in the process. Thick white paint, or perhaps heavy shellac, is scraped over a large portion of the painting, creating a void space that suppresses the original design. Sharp dividing lines separate it, creating a feeling of three-dimensionality; the void space can be read as either a top layer that hides or a cut that removes the backing entirely.

My recent creations stay away from paint entirely, giving up the choice of colour to the materials I use. Discovery is an essential part of this art making process. Ignoring rubbish is something that we all do just to stay sane. And it’s not too hard to do, either. Garbage weaves itself into natural spaces. Grass grows over beer bottle lids and silvery gum wrappers, the thick stalks protecting them from the blades of a mower. Trash sometimes takes on the colours of its environment: papers around cigarette filters fade, over time, from golden orange to a pale, earthy colour range.

Discovering these types of materials that are all around us, but also invisible, requires a bit of a brain reset. Rather than looking at tall buildings, lush greenery and beautiful skies, I’ve started focusing on what lies between, underneath, inside. I consider the potential for these items to be remade.

At home I’ve got a rather horrendous collection of detritus, categorised and boxed ready for my next artwork. Things I’ve been collecting include stuff like plastic meat trays (with those interesting ripples on the bottom), bra inserts (sliced into foam curves, like the petals of a protea) and plastic tampon covers (so bright and cheerful!)

The experimental art-making used in my artworks redefines the standard meaning of the materials via a kind of aesthetic dismemberment. Dissecting these materials creates a deeper understanding of the objects and changes the meaning from, for example, a discarded, stomped-on cigarette butt left at a bus stop, to soft, caramel-coloured, enigmatic fluff. Upon further investigation, it is found that each filter is composed of fine, vertical threads. These can be unravelled and turned into a thin weave, or taken apart entirely and reconstituted into a gentle beige felt.

These found materials often carry with them a surfeit of meaning: dire circumstances, addiction, instability, infirmity, vulnerability. Using a ‘bricoleur’ process (as defined by anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss), the artworks defamiliarise these uncomfortable materials through a process of opportunity, uncertainty and serendipity.