My journey into art
as a creative medium began nine years ago, during a long
period of illness.Unable to go on holiday, as planned, I bought
a digital camera with which to‘amuse’
myself.
I started out by taking the usual ‘snaps’
but quickly tired of the predictable results. A few
weeks after buying the camera I tried taking some still
life shots of objects arranged on my kitchen table.
When I transferred the images to my computer screen
I realised that visually I was far more captivated by
the crepe paper and silver foil I’d used as a
backdrop. I began to see pictorial possibilities in
the lines and folds in the paper. In addition, simply
shining a torch through a piece of tissue paper, or
hessian, provided the luminosity required for landscaping
images.
For me, art is essentially the unconscious at play.
I may start out with a rough idea but the pictures I
take are always organically produced. The digital photograph
is my starting canvas but often an image will confront
me with a completely new idea when viewed on my monitor.
Sometimes I zone in on a small segment of an image,
perhaps just using a little colour enhancement, to achieve
a very different result to my original idea. Some images
I approach in a more ‘painterly’ fashion,
using the paintbrush tools in Adobe photoshop.
The galleries also contain some digital photos of my
paintings and encaustic artwork. I like experimenting
with colour and working with Adobe allows for this.
The
images on this site could be termed ‘survival
images’. When unable to travel I produce images
of abstract landscapes and galactic worlds that have
an aura of strangeness and beauty. When my mobility
is limited and my legs won’t do what I want them
to do I become the ‘smoking ballerina’ in
my self-portrait gallery.
Art is also an adventure in thought for me. My background
is in Philosophy and Analytic psychotherapy and these
areas often influence the direction of my work. Through
the Links tab on this site I hope to open up a discussion
forum where artists can discuss conceptual ideas. |