They are memories; they are snapshots of my life. These paintings speak of the land from which I come to the many lands where I have lived. Complications with spoken languages have transported this work into a network of painterly language I have evolved over years of traveling and observing. I create these paintings to communicate my sense of identity in societies where I have felt separate.
My work has become a place for me in which to transform the complexity of personal experiences in society into a poetic dialog between tranquility and hostility. A diary recording of flashback experiences conjure thoughts that are transported into colour film reels of paint, signifiers of experiences within each colour strip. Multitudes of strips become layers of lyrical scarring taking on the meanings represented in my journey through various societies.
Interweaving within this aesthetic journey is a continuous playfulness in mark making. The playfully hypnotic painterly surface invites the viewer inside the canvas to engage in conversations between colour, light, space and texture. The tensions between these elements create a harmonious movement through the painting. The paintings use the purity of luminous colour, optical properties and physical texture of the paint to express narrative and metaphysical concerns.
The paintings create a painterly surface in constant tension between the boundaries of structure and free improvisation. The colours follow the parameters I have set within the rigid square geometry, but pulse restlessly, pushing against these boundaries with a fecund playfulness, inscribing the emotions and impulses of my life with a staccato calligraphic explosion of graphic energy. This sense of improvisation within my work focuses on the differentness I have felt, and represents my search for personal identity.