Over the past ten years, I have been using the genre of still life. My previous exploration of cultural identity has led me from still life painting to a new expansion into figurative work.
The portrayal of identity in one form or another will doubtless continue to be an ongoing theme.
In my pursuit of a dream, that of of capturing a universal and eternal beauty, I have discovered that alongside dualities, exists a continuum between polar opposites. The new challenge for me is to represent both completion and incompletion, perfection and imperfection, black-and-white and shades-of-grey, the generic and the specific, the ideal and the real, the present moment and the infinite. I find increasingly that what is true in life, is true in art. Drawings demonstrate this very point so succinctly: a line drawing is a shorthand by which we convey a quick understanding of the subject being portrayed. A drawing depicting shadow and light only conveys the meat and substance of the form. Either one can exist without the other, but inevitably the one completes the other.
My current exploration is based on the question of how much incompleteness can exist on paper, and how much the viewer can be engaged to see and understand what is implicitly there. Essentially I am searching for that point in art that mirrors that point in life, where we truly understand and appreciate the whole without needing absolute and totally defined completion..