Paintings with Secrets

When taken together, the faces, relationships and actions captured in my early paintings build a kind of stage setting for a period fraught with unease, violence and deceit. Each scene, overlapping with one another, leaves what truly matters outside the frame. By decentralising, fracturing or even expunging the motif, the actual material itself is foregrounded and allowed to express itself freely through intersecting and superimposed layers of colour, forceful contrasts and dry brushstrokes that construct the form without ever fully merging together.
Overall, the works combine an unreal palette with a firm, concise and deliberately aggressive handling of paint. The series is dominated by male figures, with close-ups of anonymous faces forming a collective portrait of self-absorbed individuals, recalling instrument-less musicians lost in their music. Beyond a literal reading, each fragment suggests another narrative from which to begin thinking, not about the identity of those portrayed, but about the society they represent. For all their apparent legibility, these paintings evoke what is missing through what they show.