The Spatial Series is intended as a nod to the Italian Modernists of the 1960s like Fontana, Scheggi, and Castellani, who broke through the canvas surface to create sculptural work that played with light and shadow. But instead of relying on cloth and wire, I am using modern manufacturing techniques that rely on CNC programming and machining. Using parametric software to create set elements, I create photographic moments that I then turn into sculptures using metal, acrylic, paper, and lacquer. Every piece is unique, I use no image nor programming twice, even though the industrial nature of the process would allow me to make multiple copies.
Brutalism is a reference to an architectural style popular amongst regimes that wanted to accentuate the importance of the State over that of the individual. My series intends to celebrate the personal victory of the human figure and the strength of the human spirit over systemic hardness. Set amongst man-made hard-edged objects that push in or down, the human figure triumphs in spite of the space within which it finds itself.
As with all my other work, every piece is unique. Though I start with photography, no image is used more than once. I set crops, and then precision-manufacture each piece using steel, acrylic, and waxed paper. The crop is a separate element within an overall composition, and challenges the viewer to visually move through the piece in different ways.
A small series that became the transition between the earlier Personal Disclosure and the Brutalism series that followed. It continues my process of contextual crops, in which I highlight aspects of the image but leave them within the landscape of their origin. These were much brighter. The soft focus and variance in material continues as it did in my previous work. It allows me to make multiple shot compositions, guiding the viewer’s eye into the work, and then re-focusing and re-contextualizing that perception. These works are photographic in their origin, and each piece is unique. There are no editions, and no image is ever used again. After creating the initial photograph, the picture is printed on matte Diasec acrylic, and then precision-cut. The frames, both in the crop and along the outer-most edge of the piece, are cold-rolled steel.
The series Personal Disclosure investigates the body as portrayed through contemporary photography while drawing on historically baroque notions of the narrative image. Borrowing the formal language of painting, the production values of commercial photography, and the tactile properties of sculpture, these carefully constructed pieces become scenes of heightened emotion, captured within timeless mythologies.
Every piece is unique, I never use a photograph twice. After shooting the image, I set crops but leave them within their original context. There’s a visual differentiation by framing the crop in steel, and setting the rest of the image in a soft-focused Diasec to create multiple physical and visual layers.
Quiet Devotion finds its inspiration in Baroque light, but rather than insisting on familiar stories or recognizable characters, it seeks to isolate elements within the frame suggesting a new narrative. Though narrative in nature, I came to realise that it is not the stories that drive the strength of an image. The work discovers divinity and sanctity within the human figure itself.
Although photographic in its origin, each piece is unique. There are no editions, and no image is ever used again. After creating the initial photograph, the picture is printed on matte Diasec acrylic, and then precision-sawn. The crops are framed in oiled steel, within which is placed a Di-Tone waxed paper print.
