My work is a collection of nude and partially clothed bodies. They are composed with pencil, watercolour,ink paint and charcoal. Colour is used for emotional tone and emphasis. I’m interested in idealism and meditated bodies, such as those sourced from historical sculpture, TV and 20th century magazines; women’s magazines, pornography, wrestling magazines, Men’s magazines etc. An example of this would be Lee Miller’s The suicided Burgomaster’s Daughter. The type of poses that interest me are poses of domination, victory, submission and docility, similar to the poses used in historical allegorical sculpture of victory and defeat. Using photographs and images of bodies in extreme and vulnerable poses to simulate echoes within myself and attempting to transfer the resulting emotional energy via a buildup of lines on paper. My work is about isolation, vulnerability and surviving violence, the line and the page come together to articulate difficult feelings and experiences. The model is a fictional one suspended and rendered by the marks of time and trauma. These drawings of bodies express socially inexpressible emoticons.
The method I use is blind contour drawing. This involves not looking at the paper and allows me to put all of my focus on my internal subject. This drawing method also fosters a contemplative state allowing me to work unconsciously. This an unconscious drawing or automatic drawing technique. The process helps in exploring ideas that I might have difficulty expressing or using in my work and stops me filtering out thought that might lead to something in my story telling research. I aim to work in the 2d space of the material with a rough perspective that I believe people are accustomed to from the modern environment. Such as living spaces, images of graffiti that are effective due to their being erected in areas of cites that have cultural context or a consideration for how the artist was living in a poor area.