Our propensity for confrontation and violence; the history which tells us that that part of us hasn’t diminished over time; the impulses within us which ignite anger and, within some, transform that anger into thoughts and then acts of violence; the mismatch between the willingness of some to contemplate violence, and the revulsion felt at its effects; the pain we are capable of feeling when faced with the suffering of others and the limits to that compassion; but alongside that - the consumption of violence as entertainment and the uncomfortable question of whether we remain capable of distinguishing, fully, between the fiction we consume and the real violence we abhor.

 

I question my own position in relation to these matters.

 

My practice is therefore in part political and in part introspective, challenging accepted norms and, as the artist William Kentridge has said, "defending the uncertain". My imagery is figurative, but influenced by an ancient canon of simple narrative line, akin to caricature and reflecting a distorted reality which allows an emphasis on constructs which matter to me.

 

I paint in oils on canvas, reworking images many times, carving material from the surface of the painting, leaving brushwork visible and sometimes scratching into an almost completed picture, in each case to leave an active memory of my process. I make three-dimensional work in wood, porcelain other clays, amalgamating past carving and ceramic traditions with manipulated digital imagery and modern fabrication machinery. My subject has an ancient history but a depressing contemporary relevance. Drawing on ancient and modern practices in making my work reflects both that past and our very challenging present.