Statement

Centred around a unique process of freezing and thawing water based colour, my paintings, composed of discreet frozen forms, melt and interact with each other, capturing the results of transformative processes; liquid to solid, three dimensional to two dimensional, order to chaos. Through painting with ice, I am exploring the nature of chance and control, along with colour, geometry and visual sensation.

Current paintings focus on making complex work with the minimum of means. The coloured ice forms are circular, placed in an evenly spaced grid arrangement. This ‘all over’ approach denies traditional artistic compositional devices, and also suggests the grids continuation beyond the picture plane. To me the grid represents order, an underlying mathematical structure. The grid also represents a high degree of entropy, as there are far more ways for the forms to be arranged randomly than to exist in equally spaced alignment. 

The most recent series of work is based around the idea of all possible variations within a closed system. Each piece is composed of a grid of 875 individual forms, from a palette of 17 predetermined colours laid out at random. This means the amount of possible unique combinations is 17^875 . This is a number with 1000 digits. The estimated number of atoms in the observable universe is a number which is only 93 digits long.

Circles seem to me to be the most ‘neutral’ of all possible forms, perfectly symmetrical, and at once self contained but infinite. The circle also recalls orbits, like those of planets, galaxies or the particles within atoms. The ice replaces the brush as a vehicle for the application of paint, tracing and recording movement. Creating individual, independent forms of frozen paint, thousands of chance interactions occur, the colour reaching out in the spaces between the forms, akin to the propagation of energy fields of fundamental forces, reminiscent of neurones making connections.

My paintings explore ‘Process Painting’, but they are also a synthesis of Hard Edged Abstraction and Colour Field Painting. The mix of intuitive and experimentation-based approaches of painters like Bridget Riley and Ian Davenport have been very important to me. I have also been equally inspired by Morris Louis, Ellsworth Kelly, Callum Innes, and Agnes Martin, whose painterly methodologies all share a commitment to an overarching system or technique based approach, and an exploration of the power of colour. 

Working within preset boundaries, or imposing strict limitations on the creative process, generates deep and interesting ideas, allowing me to pass through into new process based, conceptual and artistic spaces, full of possibilities. The grid structure, colour and techniques in my work are all constrained in some way, yet I do not experience any feeling of limitation. The possibilities within these spaces seem limitless.

I often compare my work to musical composition: each individual ice form as a note, with its own colour, interacting together to create phrases, which join to make passages of varying lengths, tones and intensities. Taken overall, a painting can be seen as the capture of a performance, with harmonies, dissonances, counterpoint and rhythm. These musical similarities also reference to the often observed parallels between music, mathematics and physics. The vibrations of reality.