Introduction

     I am engaged in the parallel practices of painting and performance art. In both I am interested in intimate
    exchange, whether between viewer and artwork, or between the work and myself. I have a devotion to craft,
    often making performances that last many hours and paintings that can take months to make – this
    dedication to the process is a way of exploring how concepts can be developed over time to inhabit something
    ‘other’ than the human realm, transforming the everyday into a spiritual act.

    Paintings

    At first glance my paintings are delicate and obsessive watercolours of plant forms. Extravagant, tantalizing
    and intense, their attention to detail appears to record nature as a perfectly evolved endeavour. But on closer
    reading they reveal perverted and hybridised forms, sometimes inferring human entrails; they begin to
    question representations of truths of the natural order, and in doing so offer the unidentifiable, in between
    states of being. This allows for a sinister quality to emerge, alongside a humour especially offered in the titles.

    The viewer is encouraged to come close to the works, thereby experiencing an intimacy similar to the artist’s
    proximity during the process of painting. A direct connection to the audience is desired, attempting to bring an
    immediate exchange between viewer and maker offering a closer communication.

    I create performances on paper.

    Performances

    Characteristically, my live performances have featured myself immersed in fluids, for example, water or milk,
    and focus on the detail of the body, such as my mouth; all directly referencing the erotic and the grotesque.
    I re-place the fluidity of the inside outside and make it exchangeable with other bodies. Sometimes the work
    is silent, sometimes there is text. A mutual witnessing occurs between myself and my audience that explores
    the limits of permissible intimacy and the implications of transgressing boundaries in the moment of
    performance. This exchange with another person – the audience - is ‘the live experience’. It is indefinable in
    terms of the intellect, it is the unknown, a place impossible to articulate or analyse whilst it is happening.
    The moment of symbiosis, the apex of ‘the live’, creates a transformation through physical action where the
    personal responsibility of the audience exists on the same level as the artist. It places both audience and
    performer in unfamiliar territories allowing for a confrontation where dialogue becomes unavoidable.