The Constant Painter

Curtin Art Degree Show 2016: Artist Statement

brief encounters

My work is a pathway to an understanding of being and mortality. It is a personal reflection on aging and the passing of time and, in effect, is a rite of passage and an emotional response to a quiet grieving.

I am inspired by the ephemeral quality of natural light as it moves through a room, and the way it can give a sense of the slowing down of a moment in time. That moment might be captured when a shadow on a wall makes me think I saw something that wasn’t there. It is then, that I feel I am in a transitional mode of being, in a liminal space in my mind that has a way of triggering unexpected recollections of absence and loss.

A working methodology that predominantly uses a digital camera, allows me to quickly record images of the fleeting interplay between shadows and light in a room. This enables me to build a broad vocabulary of images whose potential can be realised in a body of work that seeks to communicate a perception of this liminal state. This is where the process of its transitory quality can be slowed down and contemplated.