Contagion Print

I have an affinity for animals, growing up in a rural South African village surrounded by these sentient creatures. South Africa is synonymous with wildlife like elephants, rhino, lions and baboons. Parks protect species but poaching is rife and canned hunting persists. The most pressing issue of our century is environmental degradation. My paintings are about oceanic, animal and human socio-environmental issues. Human society is alienated from animals. To reduce this, animals and environment could be amalgamated into human cultural experience; separations of 'identity' need to be 'loosened'. My paintings require the overlay of various elements. Charcoal energy lines are swamped in a paint-staining process that introduces flowing forms. Lines delineating architectural space are superimposed over portions of representational imagery. Compositions are balanced yet retain duration. The goal is to make a complex, visually stimulating experience that will engage the imagination. I reduce the identity of pictorial elements to interlace the whole with a sense of fluidity that embraces ambiguity and contradiction. I engage Indigenous poetic myths including the Kraken and Hydra aiming at a metaphorical rather than literal exposition of the environmental dilemma. The paintings need to live beyond the immediate polemic and be beautiful.