When I began painting a few years ago the subject was often my family. I had two nephews then (now three almost four!) and I wanted to capture their innocent expressions in paint. It is only now looking back I can see expression has always been important to me. After painting a picture of my sister and her son a mother commented “I know that expression”. I had aimed to capture my sister’s look of Joy at the moment the picture was taken. Like photographs, my aim was to capture that moment in time but with the added texture and expression of the paint.
With a passion for fashion photography I used this as source material as well as cat memes and celebrity. The subject wasn’t important to me as long as I developed my style by using media images around me. The attraction of fashion photography is similar to that of film; it present us with a fairy tale image. We know it is not real at yet we still like to believe it is attainable. I painted images of old Hollywood glamour and tried to present a narrative through an installation of dressing table and accessories. One painting: Ann of Prada was inspired by a portrait belonging to Christchurch Mansion. I kept the original portrait’s face and then used flat bright colours to produce a modern take on an old Portrait.
I think the definitive difference between now and then is the way I have control of the image. Before it was limiting working from magazines or photographs. I tried to make the images my own by letting the paint drip, changing the colours and the surface I worked on. I tried different grounds on my canvas but all the time the image did not feel personal to me. By taking the film itself and making my own stills I am somehow constructing my own series of events.
