Reflection (detail), 2019.

30”x 24”. Oil on Canvas.

In Reflection, a conscious varying of painting techniques can be seen; Exposed underpainting gives a glow of reflected sunshine off the edges of the subjects’ shirt. A more considered realism renders the idea of an ear as a tangible gateway leading us into the subjects’ mind and subsequent thoughts. Gestural brushstrokes sweep affectionately almost in abstraction across the subjects’ face. Whilst paint thickly applied with a palette knife represents the hair, in parts heavy with physical presence. This Dissipates toward the light where other generous paint application obliterates the subjects’ face - our customary form of identification.

Violence (detail), 2019.

36”x 24”. Oil on Canvas.

Within Violence the subjects’ eye is understated which on closer scrutiny can be seen to have been wiped away back to the vaguest trace of what was once there. The ghost of a once physically perfect feature, now overlooked, the viewer is misdirected to believe all is well.

Lost (detail), 2019.

36”x 24”. Oil on Canvas.

Lost again leaves bare the underpainting and its’ dripped, diluted happy accidents over which paint has been applied before being stripped back forcibly, in places scarring the canvas. All this ferocity and savage treatment of the subjects is provoked by the brutality of the cancer treatment, the subsequent disabling, but lifesaving surgery and the arduous ongoing recovery. There is also some rage at the indiscriminate and apparently unavoidable nature of being randomly selected for this life-rupturing and traumatic event. A trace of this ‘fault’ is detectable in all works in the series either as a visible linear bisection, or in more subtle, ambiguous flaws.

Gone (detail), 2019.

24”x 20”. Oil on Canvas.

Rage indeed played a part in the expression of another enforced loss which was overcome this year. Gone was not an image taken from a cherished photograph or a snapshot of a time between familial synergy. This was from all that was left of a memory of a brother, resolutely estranged and once grieved for. Like a scene from an old flickering film reel his countenance trembles, intermittently fading in and out at each remembering. The treatment of this painting scratched through, painted over, turps splashed and in ruins, leaves us looking at an image not unlike the scarification left after surgery which reminds us of spent pain.

Confinement (detail), 2019.

24”x 36”. Oil on Canvas.

Is the figure in Confinement looking at the light behind the curtains which contain her or is she looking out at us, her audience? Are we undetected spectators or are we the ones who do not see? The subject is in shadow. A void. Only the light is sculpting the merest feature here and there to identify a person at the very edge. Surrounded as she is, placed at the centre of the installation (see ‘Exhibitions’ tab), it appears this is the only subject who may be aware of an audience. We witness what she sees gauging with her the fallout from last year’s events. Though behind her gaze, whichever way it faces, we can only speculate who remains.