Secrets in the Family
I remember on one family outing, at a very young age being allowed to take my first photograph with my father's Kodak Box Brownie, which meant holding the camera at waist height, looking down into the viewfinder, framing the subject and squeezing the shutter until a satisfying clunk was heard. The experience was thrilling the start of a long and continuing fascination with photography. I first looked towards the family snapshot as a source of subject matter during my time at art school after inheriting a full box of unseen family photos. While the grainy images represented snippets of time gone by I also thought of them as a key to my understanding of past, like pieces of evidence that when put together they could shed some light on the dark mysteries of my family and help me understand my place within it.
I realised that when these tiny pictures of people on holiday, cars, gardens and family groups were painted large they seemed to take on a new significance like monumental tributes to the mundane.
I remember on one family outing, at a very young age being allowed to take my first photograph with my father's Kodak Box Brownie, which meant holding the camera at waist height, looking down into the viewfinder, framing the subject and squeezing the shutter until a satisfying clunk was heard. The experience was thrilling the start of a long and continuing fascination with photography. I first looked towards the family snapshot as a source of subject matter during my time at art school after inheriting a full box of unseen family photos. While the grainy images represented snippets of time gone by I also thought of them as a key to my understanding of past, like pieces of evidence that when put together they could shed some light on the dark mysteries of my family and help me understand my place within it.
I realised that when these tiny pictures of people on holiday, cars, gardens and family groups were painted large they seemed to take on a new significance like monumental tributes to the mundane.
Strong Silent World
Through close analysis of scenes of family photos I began to realise that they often told stories other than the scenes that they were supposedly portraying, for example the two women in the painting Strong Silent World are my mother and my paternal grandmother. On first sight the snapshot shows a happy afternoon spent on the beach but the truth was, that even though they dutifully kept up appearances they actually didn’t like each other very much and suffered in silence when together. They sit in close proximity but there was always an unease between them in all of the photos in which they appear, keeping up appearances while at the same time showing subtle signs of discomfort. In the painting I attempt to instil the image with a sense of brooding resentment that must have been stored up between the two of them for years. The veiling of the image also suggests things covered up, like a net curtain hiding the secrets in the family from the rest of the world.
Memory is intangible and I wanted to make some paintings that reflected this quality. Painting gloss varnish on top of a matte background or vice versa achieved paintings that could only be seen from certain angles. Like our recollections; we can only ever glimpse small segments at a time; we never get to view the whole, complete scene.
Through close analysis of scenes of family photos I began to realise that they often told stories other than the scenes that they were supposedly portraying, for example the two women in the painting Strong Silent World are my mother and my paternal grandmother. On first sight the snapshot shows a happy afternoon spent on the beach but the truth was, that even though they dutifully kept up appearances they actually didn’t like each other very much and suffered in silence when together. They sit in close proximity but there was always an unease between them in all of the photos in which they appear, keeping up appearances while at the same time showing subtle signs of discomfort. In the painting I attempt to instil the image with a sense of brooding resentment that must have been stored up between the two of them for years. The veiling of the image also suggests things covered up, like a net curtain hiding the secrets in the family from the rest of the world.
Memory is intangible and I wanted to make some paintings that reflected this quality. Painting gloss varnish on top of a matte background or vice versa achieved paintings that could only be seen from certain angles. Like our recollections; we can only ever glimpse small segments at a time; we never get to view the whole, complete scene.
Deep Coloured Glazes
In an attempt to create works of a greater emotional impact I began to construct paintings set behind intense coloured glazes of alizarin, viridian and ultramarine. The scenes seem to be locked jewel-like similar to insects trapped in amber stone, moments trapped in time. Light and dark also became more important as the characters throw long dark shadows. In many paintings the protagonists are virtually anonymous. By avoiding facial detail other than a highlight of the side of a face or a spot of light on a nose the characters remain unspecified. I think that this allows the viewer space to project their own experience on to the images.
Found Memories
I came across a photo album of an unknown couple's trip to France in the cellar of a house in which I was living at the time. On the cover of the album written in biro were the words Paris August 1975. I was intrigued that someone related to this photo album had some connection to the place where I then resided. How did the book get there and what circumstances I wondered had led to this keepsake being abandoned? I chose to recreate the series of images in the album by painting each photo onto a single panel forty centimetres square. The piece is twenty panels in total and represents the order in which it appears in the album. It looks somewhat like a story board; a view of the Eiffel Tower, a view from the top of the tower, a shot of a museum, a photo of her, a photo of him etcetera. A story in photos of the couple’s romantic trip to Paris.
Paris August 1975 oil on board (20 panels) each panel 30 x 30 cms 
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