Artwork

My art explores my inner world, looking outward from inside; a synthesis of memory and myth. With the feminine principle at its heart, I am embracing the unity of life and nature, and by harnessing this energy, I celebrate human and animal form, my sexuality and the psychology of intimacy. To me, the physical act of creation evokes ancient archetypes, totems, and mythical rites that create a calculated catharsis that challenges concepts of beauty and perceptions of truth and reality. Ultimately, I want to arouse my audience by the means of a sensual intensity that brings an understanding of their own existence.

AROUSAL OF THE KUNDALINI (from 2018) work in progress

Collecting taxidermy snakes and images of snakes that have been x-rayed with various objects inside them, I have developed a series of work concerned with form and matter, transparency and largely what’s unseen. Biomorphic forms have emerged, like diagnostic imageries that are not based on science and knowledge, but enacting the tools of scientific enquiry to try and describe intimacy, love and movement.

All paintings and drawings are made with charcoal, pastel and oil crayons, acrylic and spray paint on gesso primed canvas and papers. 

21ST CENTURY WOMAN SERIES (from 2018) work in progress

Recent ideas have developed using photo-montages, painting installations and objects that explore the primitive psyche and the psychogeography of a place – the places and spaces that have both a history and memory that I have a connection to are juxtaposed with a female mannequin (dressed with) and accompanied by an array of taxidermy animals from snakes, woodland animals, and birds. Observing how easy it is to lose a real sense of connection to ourselves and the natural world around us, these works ask the question, ‘what does it mean to be a 21st Century Woman?’

THE MUSE IS EXHAUSTED SERIES (2017)

Hybrids of infamous muses and mythical creatures, these ambiguous portraits with their empty eyes and translucent, cellular bodies, are a reflection of ourselves in the form of carnivalesque demons, animals and goddesses. This new series, The Muse is Exhausted, explores the relationship of the gaze and the gaze turned in on itself and to the primordial goddesses of myth and imagination. In a world preoccupied with the communication of self and image and a culture of looking and being seen, these portraits pose existentialist questions of who and what we are.

All paintings made with charcoal, pastel, acrylic and spray paint on gesso primed canvas. Maud is painted on 300 gsm Saunders Waterford paper. Sizing – figures: 120 x 150cm and portraits: 60 x 70 cm.

• 

PHOENIX & LITTLE WING SERIES (2016-2017)

This existential body of work centres on the transformation of life form, creating a sense of visual intrigue and material presence. The physicality and expansion of scale take on a metamorphic quality that occupies an ambiguous space – fragile, transient, ethereal. The polarities between consciousness and unconsciousness; memory and ambiguity; self and other; death and rebirth (although the dialogue has a personal narrative) has universal significance.

YOU NEVER STOP SWIMMING UNTIL YOU REACH THE OCEAN SERIES (2016)

You Never Stop Swimming and the Peekaboo series are a series of drawings and paintings where the same or similar images are drawn again and again with charcoal, acrylic and various spray paints and varnishes. The repetition of image, scale and dimension creates a sense of visual intrigue and material presence, the objective is to entice the viewer to stop and take in the work at a pared-down pace.

The tension between light and dark, form and matter and the image pushing out from the boundaries of the surface are important qualities to this series. The layers are built up over time and the mark making is hard, soft, feathery, pitted, dense and translucent. The palette is monochromatic and simplified to focus purely on the image structure which starts its journey from a series of photos observed and taken directly from my own body. Pencil and charcoal studies are drawn initially from the images until I isolate and hone in on the form chosen to scale up.

PEEKABOO SERIES (2015-2016)

These paintings are ambiguous, faceless and anonymous; the concentration is on the pelvis, hips and legs. They are seductive and meant to tease, subvert and celebrate the female form, developing a dialogue with the patriarchal history of the ‘female nude’. The geometry of a woman’s body is a metaphor for a landscape, which has been formed by millions of years a geological metamorphosis and in these works, the imagery takes on a perspective as a language of body and landscape. However, the square format defies the interpretation of a landscape, the boxing in creates a further tension of wanting to break free. Questions are asked if these works are representative of sections of a woman’s body or by analogy, they relate and become part of our imaginative experience.

Any redistribution or reproduction of part or all of the contents on this website in any form is prohibited. You may not, except with my express written permission, distribute or commercially exploit the content. Nor may you transmit it or store it in any other website or other forms of the electronic retrieval system. © Masked Sphinx 2020.