Statement
My particular process of painting allows me to be in contact with the wild and untamed elements that is my creative source. Usually it goes through stages, and an initial stage is like the nigredo in alchemy, the primordial underworld. In another stage the painting may look aesthetically pleasing, but lifeless. When I paint I can feel in my body a connection with the pulse and rhythm that either infuses energy or depletes it. I have learned to listen to my body, and if there’s a disconnect I recognise the moment is calling for a radical change. I tend to respond spontaneously, such as immersing my fingers into a thick layer of paint, sprawling across the image as it bleeds into something else. Other times I might dip a paintbrush into black and let the movement take me wherever it goes on the canvas or paper. This may seem reckless but it wakes me up. It’s as if I’m eradicating a stiff falsity of oppression and pain hiding in the corners where my ancestors lived.
These dynamics allow me to dip deeper into what emerges out of the dark splodges and the not beautiful, where transformation can happen. I want to be open to whatever arises out of the untapped and hidden gems within the unconscious so the wild can weave its way into my art and become one with it. When I create, my inner journey moves in metaphors, like a fairytale with dense forests, and an archetype such as a toothless unkempt old woman who is not what she appears to be. These messengers are my intuition. When I am receptive and open to what is, then the dark become glimpses seeping through the surface and create what I intend, which is depth. I want to touch the essence of what it means to be beneath mechanical thinking, and move beyond illusion or the maya माया of our concrete world through the medium of art.
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