Artist Talk.

'Self Study'

"As you may remember I started off with painting those knees and I have basically gone down hill from there, although I haven't ended up far from that look. When it got to us making work of what we wished, I was clueless... I ended up going back to the elephant skull that I had become obsessed with over the summer holidays. However, I couldn't find a good enough reason of why I wanted to work with this subject, other than "I like elephants and skulls".

Somehow I ended up moving on to dinosaur skulls, possibly because of how my reference images resembled something prehistoric, and it brought back memories of how much I enjoyed the film 'Jurassic Park' and a nightmare I used to have as a child of me running up a hill being chased by Tyrannosaurus Rex. Then it came to having to choose one or the other, I told myself I couldn't do both and after a long debate in my head, I chose dinosaurs. After this decision you would've thought I would've been off and away, but no. Not only was it difficult to find many artists who worked with that topic, other than palaeontological images from people like Wayne Barlowe, I guess I didn't find what I was hoping for (I have no idea what that was though). I enjoyed a few works by Thane Gorek ('Emmersons Dinosaurs', 'Box of Bones', 'Skill Box') though and a piece by Kris Emerson called 'Dyathinkeesaurus', which I discovered from a C&CS lecture. There were also a few illustrators I found on Facebook and Twitter (Lorna Scobie, Jamie Mitchell and James Barker).

After seeing what was out there I still didn't have a clue what I wanted to do. I ended up making a large, rough drawing/painting of a T-Rex wrapped round an elephant skull... I still couldn't let that damn object go. I pretended too myself that I was creating that piece to say goodbye to it, when I knew it wouldn't be the last one. We had the hassle of the EE exhibition and then the staging strategies project. They took my mind of not knowing what I was doing with my art. I decided I wanted to give oil painting with a brush a better go and what better way to start than with an image I knew well... It was back to the elephant skull. There was just something about that form that I just love. I painted it using a limited colour palette, people asked me why and it was simply because they were the only 3 colours I had. Whilst going through this I decided to enter the 'Eastern Approaches Open Exhibition' and got a film piece selected, which was exciting.

Once that was all sorted I was even more stuck with what to do than I already was. Clive gave me a canvas he had drawn on and told me to just paint it. I drew on another one for him to do the same. My reaction was just 'What?! Why?!', but I did as I was told and to my disbelief I enjoyed it very much. I felt so free and didn't care what happened or where the paint went. I was less precious about it because it wasn't mine. Looking back on it, maybe that's the art I should do, get someone else to draw it and I'll just colour it in without a care in the world...

I then went through a short phase of being a sculptor, making little dinosaurs from clay or modelling material, a lump that looked like the face of some creature and even a little ear leech. This was due to attending an Art Talk, called 'Artists as Geneticists: Evolution, Transpeciation and Transgenic Art', from Professor Fae Brauer, who talked a lot about an artist named Patricia Piccinini, which got me interested enough I ended up writing my essay based on her.

After that stress I had been at a stand still for a few weeks, which then lead to having a tutorial with Paul and that ended up being extremely helpful, he told me to look at Varda Caivano's work with I did. I also looked at Per Kirkeby, Cy Twombly and Paul Klee. Basically, I needed to let go. Paul told me to put some canvas up, buy more paints (some that I'm attracted to and some that I'm not) and just do. Use colour and make shapes without caring what they looked like. Don't think of them as final pieces but as practising. I agreed but when it came to doing it, again I struggled.

This was unknown territory for me but I tried and finally, I made an ill and tired realisation. I love colour, so why do I feel the need to define it with shapes and detail? I thought of Mark Rothko and his paintings. I decided to put washes up for backgrounds and then attempted to use lines created from a palette knife to make dinosaur shapes. They were very simple compared to previous works but I still felt I hadn't listened to myself. That is where this piece 'Self Study' has come from. It is me going against these boundaries I have subconsciously created. It is personal, about my habits as an artist. It is a simple work, which has forced me against my natural instincts to add a line or such detail that would satisfy my need, maybe an skull. It has an unfinished look and also represents a potential for more to happen."