Processes - Collaborative Participation with Materials
Often enough it is hard to get started on making something, as if a stubborn resistance were residing in the core of my being.
It is only after being bored or fed up that I allow myself to make a mess; after this everything seems easier.
I believe that this is because the release of energy inherent in fluctuating material equates with that same energy release from the mind.
And I imagine that if something affects you in this way, it has a separate power of its own.
Working with materials is like touching something back.
The subject of my work is dependent on the materials I use. I am wary of the arrogance involved in shaping something without, in turn, being shaped by it.
A collaborative participation with material creates an understanding of the effect the creative process has on the creator, through the language of nature.
Through the gentle manipulation of matter into forms of thought, I become inspired to make this the subject of my work. Hence, many of my pictures describe their own coming into being.
When a thought takes shape in the mind, its nature is amorphous and shifting, similar in nature to the fluctuating substances that we use to make art. Where my works are discernable in terms of style and content, I am most interested in how materials might adapt or transform my gesture or intent into their own form of speech, therefore not only becoming a medium (in the occult sense) for the fluid transmission of an artist's voice (something to be spoken through), but also the embodiment of the conversation itself (something to be spoken to).
I have used specific narratives to describe how interaction with materials enables a kind of release of the spirit, or imaginative force, from one bodily mass (the brain) into a 'body' of work, where it grows and develops a mind of its own. It then awakens newfound inspiration in the artist's mind, creating a circulatory effect, like a battery.
Over years, I have incorporated a diverse range of materials within my work. I shift my focus from one project to another so that each is informed by a fresh outlook.
Explore the Processes
2. Collaborative Participation (You Are Here)