I am a contemporary abstract artist working in installation, sculpture and digital media. I take inspiration from ideas around landscape and place and use process, research and experimentation to slowly move from a known object to that of a more abstract form. These forms may retain a hint of their starting point either through shape, or the use of the vibrant and intimate colours that I take note of, when moving unhurriedly across the land. To move slowly and repeatedly allows me to notice and give attention to these details.
I like to take my work back to a pared back form, with key decisions coming back to shape and colour. I enjoy the simplicity of these forms combined with the use of industrial materials such as perspex, concrete, resin and paints. I am drawn to these materials through their sensual textures and visual stimuli. The physical making of the work is of huge personal significance to me. It is important that I understand the properties of the materials and that I carry out the labour involved in the making. The use of the hand links back to memories of physically coming to know a landscape eg; the walking through it, hopping across rivers from rock to rock – a moving reflection that mirrors my experience of coming to know a place.
I like to explore the traces that are left in a landscape and to use these as the creative inspiration within my practice. These traces contain my understanding of how I recognize a landscape; how do I know that this island follows on from that headland, how do I know my location using the shapes of the land, what personal markers have I left as placement? I enjoy learning the historical traces held within the land, be it place names such as Lady Rock or Bloody Bay which gives me an understanding of the people who have lived here. It also interests me to know a little of the geology and to understand why a landscape looks as it does, the softness of Lismore compared to the hardness of Morven. All of these traces provide me with the knowledge of a landscape but to know it I also need to experience it, to move slowly within it or across it; to move it from merely a scenic view to somewhere where I can become familiar with the place of the land.