MA SHOWS

My sources of inspiration are immaterial and ephemeral phenomena - light and shadows, dreams, transience, absence and ghostly presences, suspended time - and how they interact with the material and physical. My exploration into painting feeds off the contradictions of our times through introspection and haunting encounters - perhaps as a way to expiate emptiness, personal trauma and guilt, the hurt perceived for cruelty and injustice, the sudden disappearance of what is here today but is no longer tomorrow.

I tend to have a sentimental relationship with the objects and spaces I have chosen to represent - a result of growing up seeing the same objects being used, reused and recycled, never discarded or changed for something new, to the extent in which they became part of the family. ‘Sentimental’ involves a slow elaboration and reflection on deeply sedimented feelings, memories and the past. My attention is always drawn by the connections between past and present, and how lingering sentiments act as a filter through which reality and the material are transformed, reshaped and recoloured, subconsciously edited. ‘Sentimental’ also implies a stillness and a mixture of darkness and warmth. An early encounter with De Chirico's art has shaped my taste and intentions in a metaphysical approach. Literature and psychology are also important filters through which I compose my images.

This complex matter translates into a responsive production process of layered images involving cancellation and painting over, painting the negative space or using negative colours, and sometimes adding materials from daily life. The result can sometimes resist interpretation.

In my paintings, sensitivity, delicacy and softness are often coupled with their opposites, and this duality is inherent to my practice, as I try to connect negatives with their positives. Violence has powerful consequences. It can be physical, verbal, political, ideological, psychological – it produces new violence, like a chain, and leaves behind scarred powerless victims. I choose images that trigger my deep felt empathy with those victims and infuse it in objects and interiors as part of our daily little history.