Painter from the North West of England
I aspire to create portraits where the viewer wishes to share an intimate moment with this stranger on the canvas. A moment without a visual narrative, curated words or performative Tweets. A moment where an emotional world is communicated through facial expressions, body language and clothes. A moment sensitive to universal, timeless human behaviour.
Presently, my paintings have all the hallmarks of self-portraiture in that I am utilising my reflection in a mirror to make the work. They lack, however, an authorial likeness in a conventional sense.
The paintings are not about me - they aren’t fully what I see or how I feel. Sometimes it is like I am a method actress in a one woman show, absorbing myself psychologically in each role. Other times, the person behind the sheet of glass is someone unknown to me and more like a willing collaborator. She knows instinctively what I need from her. I watch as she rotates her head, flares her nostrils and furrows her brow; the light illuminating the terrain of her face. I investigate how the reconfiguration of fleeting micro movements alter the appearance of emotional states. I may be using visual information as a starting point but it is heavily manipulated by the time a new portrait lands on the canvas. It is a discombobulating process - it comes from me, but it isn’t me.
I anticipate a time when I turn the mirror to the wall in favour of working fully from memory and imagination. However, perhaps not. Perhaps the reason I start with myself is because empathy relies on looking and judging others through one’s own lens of human experience. That by painting something of myself I am also painting something of you and our shared social existence.
