My work has engaged issues of identity, intimacy and mortality. I use painting as a means to orientate my position within contemporary culture. While at times sexually explicit, the primary focus of my work has consistently been the psychological aspects of the physical experience of human presence. The underlying content addresses the quest for emotional closeness and connection.
A source of inspiration for me in exploring this subject is the content of newspapers and glossy magazines. Much of this content includes sexual images and innuendo and I employ these images and messages in my paintings to explore a sense of objectification and exploitation.
Furthermore, I want to reflect the ongoing contemporary preoccupation with mass-produced and consumer driven images and the difficulty of reconciling one’s individuality with this constant input of images and ideas from the outside, media-dominated world. I very much feel that such images have created a modern paradigm or tradition which many in society find inescapable. For me, painting is imperative as a means of challenging traditional expectations, representation and perception.