Artworks

Through use of textured application of paint, I explore fetish and the physical intimacy of it, something that we are sacrificing during this pandemic.

The title ‘Wear your mask’ is a double entendre on the use of masks in current society during COVID-19, as well as the more erotic use of masks during fetish play.

I take erotic and pornographic imagery and recreate them through the female gaze and with a fine art ideal. I paint confident and dominant women with thick, bold, textured impasto paint, a stark contrast to typical historical paintings of women.

22 is a fantastic age for personal growth, travelling, partying, and experimenting while conveniently within the socially acceptable ‘adult forgiven for being bad at adulting’ age range. For myself and my peers, it will be known as the age spent in lockdown, avoiding the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020.

In my works I aim to capture moments of my youth that I have taken for granted and feel like I am losing to Covid-19. Through cropped imagery of party’s past, I invite the audience into an intimate setting of young adults drinking and having fun, blissfully unaware of the fact that these carefree, intoxicated and beloved nights together are going to be halted and put on the shelf for the majority of 2020. These acrylic and oil paintings represent snapshots of memories that are blurred, messy, emotional, and passionate; memories that are longingly gazed upon in a world without them.

My work is inspired by cinema and the films “Beautiful Thing” and “A Clockwork Orange”. The works are exploring the lack of physical touch and sexuality that is currently being experienced due to COVID-19. The images are taken from film as although we cannot go out and have these experiences for ourselves, we can almost live vicariously through cinema. I aimed to use colour to reflect the glow of a movie screen to create a cinematic experience.

My work conveys my desires to go against the current restrictions by socializing with loved ones. Not only depicting my lust for freedom but also the act of taking precautions that are expected to be followed if I were to act upon my needs. Portraying this concept by using photos of social gatherings, pre-pandemic, and reconstructing them to fit in with the world’s current status. Doing this by adding face-masks, gloves and sanitizers in order to represent regulations being obeyed while simultaneously disobeying them by a lack of social distancing, to pretend that this current situation with Covid-19 isn’t happening. Composing the scenes to portray the essential items as unwanted by painting them black and white in order to present the idea of ignoring Covid-19 and leaving the figures sharp and centered.

The world is set on standby as the novel COVID-19 pandemic tears apart the already fragile and polarised global stage. Some deny its existence and opt rather to account the pandemic to a global takeover of an authoritarian conspiracy; others acknowledge it as the apocalypse and end of contemporary society as we know it. Some find themselves in the middle, neither amounting it to conspiracy nor the apocalypse. In making art I seek to acknowledge, engage with, and challenge the contemporary socio-political environment. In this lens, my paintings become as much personal and internal commentary as they are globally and socially. This collection of works presents a satirical lens to approach the global stage that we find ourselves in, commenting on an emergency seemingly with no end and a complete rejection of the social nature of humanity.

My watercolour paintings aim to showcase some of the objects that no longer feature in our everyday lives due to the pandemic. These objects such as concert tickets have become rare items and are now unusual to see, whereas before the pandemic they were incredibly commonplace. I wanted to emphasise the things as a way of both looking at the world without the pandemic, but also to spread awareness about how much our lives have changed in such a short amount of time. My realistic style of completing these paintings showcases the reality of our situation and the blurred areas display how life with these objects is only a memory.

This unconventional year has taken away the comfortable access to settings that bought people together has affected us in many ways, with the self-isolation often making time feel ambiguous with days seeming like mirrors of themselves. It challenged how we have endured the changes and found our own resilience during this time that both provides new possibilities and the postponement of plans made. We should feel free to wonder, imagine of what we value and hope to strive towards in the future which has always been uncertain but hopefully more grounded than ever. This series of works navigating the constant process of self-reflection of our subconscious with our surrounding world disappearing in the background.

My way of coping with the pandemic is by obsessively gardening and painting. I chose to make my works to narrate how much I miss my favourite nursery and art supply store. My works explore collaging plant-life, instant photography and receipts, which are something that have become a rarity, as a way of celebrating these items and their importance to me during this time. My works explore using shadows to show that these objects exist as a fond memory of when I could freely visit my favourite places. Themes of impermanence and ephemerality are often present in my artworks, and in these works they act as a reminder that hopefully, this way of life won’t last forever.

Don’t cut me off and don’t let go, the effect of distance on relationships is a shared experience across the world through this pandemic. This work explores the simplicity of forced separation and the need for human contact, the isolation and deconstruction of connection. This exhibition is an opportunity to connect and make work about ignoring the shared experience of life right now and the lack of physicality is a great reflection of the invisible barriers restricting the arts. Expression of missed relationships and inescapable anxiety were the driving force behind this work where the tones and subjects are familiar and comfortable.

My practice engages with the use of drawing and painting to explore figurative and abstract works that convey a sense of the everyday and how figures occupy a space. My works have a focus on the visceral, material quality of paint and aim to maintain a feel of drawing, breaking down colour and composition to communicate the impression of a space or moment to the viewer. A large part of my process relies on regeneration and the recycling of works and imagery in a composition, adding to a sense of repetition and the mundane. I find it compelling to investigate an underlying sense of narrative through characters and simple compositions, during a time where we are experiencing a primarily mundane and slow pace of living. These concepts are represented through an investigation of colour, where the expressive textures of paint create a narrative that marries the subject matter with the technique.