Three things I’ve said: I think it’s paramount to make bold statements, but it isn’t really important that they’re clear. The feeling of boldness is important. That felt bold to me.
Recently I was told that when chatting up girls, it’s important to tease and not give straight answers*. Apparently this builds intrigue but it’s also playful and fun. I’m not sure why that is exactly, but I believe that’s a good quality to have in art… So what that means is my work is a tease and I’m trying to chat people up with it…? I don’t know if that’s what I meant to say, but I like the example and where it lead, so I’ll leave it. *at least in the initial stages, later on you have to be forthcoming or you’ll appear creepy.
I’m interested in jarring incongruence’s, and uncertain moves. I like things that don’t fit each other, but awkwardly smash together. What you often see in my work are the doubts I have about it, about everything. I like bright colours and use a very limited pallet mostly. I don’t like problems, too many colours and you just get more problems. Broadly speaking my work is portraiture, more specifically self portraiture. The work isn’t always of me, but is mostly about me. I can’t think what else one would make work about, if not themselves. I try to make every expression of my work an authentic experience of the way I am, I hope that in this way people find some reflection of the way they are… but also think I’m special and interesting.
September 2010 ESP Sydney.
I suppose, the central concern of my work is really existential. I’m a white, single, middle class man. I imagine the sensation of molecular incohesion, I have fantasies about Madonna and fear both that there is and isn’t a god. I obsess about fakeness, fear impotence and really want intimacy more than sex, but either would be good. I’m a humanist, I enjoy people and don’t mind sitting close to them on the bus. I often believe love is hormonal... or not. I try to be sincere. Like everyone I’m kind of confused and fascinated lots of the time, I think this is where my work lives.
February 2009. KINGS ARI Melbourne.
August 2008. Sydney.
Catalog text 2/2009.
About... (kind of)
The Green paintings began in 2004. They’re mostly gags. Embarrassing, self-effacing, humiliating gags. Though that’s not strictly how they go. I dig those awkward adolescent, nostalgic, needy thoughts I haven’t grown out of.
Titles are very important. The titles aren’t intended as captions or names for the pictures really, but rather make accompanying statements. In some cases, the titles don’t have any direct relationship with the image at all, but maintain sympathy with it. I like this allot. I enjoy the correlative influences of the images and titles on each other. I also like bright colours, they excite me. I love their uplifting-ness. Dulux Van Gough green is the best of them; it matches nothing in a home. I also like the name. There’s a neat contradiction in such a festive colour being named Van Gogh Green, that looked at in the right way is very appropriate for the kind of things I make.
Re Hand Paintings, the text is more important or forward, integrated into the work. The relationships between the text and image here are more direct or explicit. There’s a historical and referential relationship between the hand gesture and the text. Together they enjoy an extended and slightly fractured collection of meanings … I could go on, there’s more to say about them, but I don’t like this paragraph. It’s jargony and poorly written.
In recent paintings, I’ve interested myself with a few different things. I like the idea of extracting new and interesting ways to consider objects through language and thought. The four feet and four hand paintings are perhaps an extension of some of the ideas in the stenciled hand gesture pictures. Each picture is a possible reason or way of considering a familiar object whose meaning, use purpose etc may vary according to context. If they work, they illustrate that meaning is contextual, relative and personal.
Sometimes I make more than one of a particular painting or series. This is for three reasons,
though there are probably plenty more good ones. The first being because it isn’t very difficult, the stencils lend themselves to reproduction easily and the acrylic spray paint dries quite quickly. It’s like a print, but not quite, they’re painted and fairly unique. Secondly, I like getting mileage from an idea; it would seem a waste or even negligent to have only one of a really excellent thing, what if it got lost? Thirdly, I like the idea that the work is slightly less exclusive when there is more than one, I really want everyone to own something I’ve made. I want to make things that are loved for their cleverness and beauty, not so much their exclusivity.
