Biography
I am a 2008 graduate of the Glasgow school of art and have exhibited both in Glasgow and internationally. I run a calander of artist group critiques at the David Dale Gallery in Glasgow.
While I have in the past produced multi disciplinary work (including video, installation and photogrpahy) I am currently concentrating on painting.
For me painting is an opportunity to investigate the nuances of aesthetic culture and the emotional links that we forge with it. The process of collecting, grouping and manipulating objects and materials is for me a process of making links and formulating ideas. I am heavily influenced by heraldry and insignias and I like the idea that particular objects can create a sense of time, place, or language.I am also very influenced by the architecture of religion (altars, oratories and churches) as spaces into which people focus their hopes, desires and devotion.
I view my paintings as proposals for spaces that are vaguely recognisable but also obviously imagined. My paintings while often quite stark are spaces that look as though there has at some point been an important emotional connection to them. These are spaces in which something has happened and passed. I very often try to construct images that look as though they have some kind of meaning that is just out of reach of the viewer.
My latest concern is to really play with the notion of history. I am very concerned with the history of art and many of my paintings are direct or indirect responces to historical paintings and art movements. But I would also like to allow more subtle history into my paintings, and I am looking for existing spaces, objects and materials that give off a sense of a historical continuum.
