My work explores traditional folklore and performative traditions and their relevance to the modern world. Drawing on folk art, illuminated manuscripts, and literary works, I apply a modern perspective to these traditional mediums. In the same vein, I study bodies in forms of stasis, agitation, and progression, such as observing that the male figure has a fragility when exposed, while simultaneously displaying an aggressive, almost primal, awareness of the danger of this exposure. When accompanied by the device of the "mask", my work seeks to challenge the concept of the traditional nude figure, in the same way that a mask obscures surface emotions.
Just as I have masked my own emotions from those around me, this sense of unreality has acted as a conduit for me to speak openly about my pain. This work plays with the ephemeral nature of meaning, of understanding. The fusing of man and beast has been a pervasive theme throughout our history; combinations are synthesised from tales across the globe. These stories have fascinated me since I was child, but it was not until recently that I expressed this interest in my art work. As wavering forms become clarified through emergent and academic practice, the viewer is left with a tribute to the edges of condition.
Man in a Badger Mask
Man in a Badger Mask
Man in a Badger Mask (detail)
Man in a Rabbit Mask (Blue)
Man Holding a Swan Mask (detail)
Man Holding a Swan Mask
Man Holding a Swan Mask (detail)
Man in a Rabbit Mask (red)
Final Picture