For Consideration

I encountered this poem written by George Gordon, entitled ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ written between 1812 – 18 recently. The poet was dissatisfied with the narcissistic way of life at that time (!). I find it relevant.

There is but a moral of all human tales

‘Tis but the same rehearsal of the past

First freedom and then glory, when that fails

Wealth, vice, corruption, barbarism at last

And history with all her volumes vast,

Hath but one page.

New Work

I’m working on some new stuff:

:In Detroit I collected up a sample of burnt charcoal remains from a house just off of 8 Mile. A car stopped as I was doing this, and a man approached, to {politely} warn me out of this neighbourhood if I didn’t want no trouble. I took his advice of course, after listening to a story about how he was planning to ‘get’ some guy who stole some of his belongings. He told me about the gang warfare in this part of town, and admitted to having shot someone before. Common territory.

With this charcoal ground up into a pigment, I added a medium, and have used it to paint a series of works based on silhouettes of Detroit house plans.

:En route Detroit via train I made a collection of carbon copy drawings using the movement of the train to direct my pencil line. The works reference disturbance, movement and uncertainty.

Using recent statistical data I’m linking abstracted graphs and numbers to the organic train drawings.

:Using photographs I took in Detroit as reference, I am composing stacked sculpturesque arrangements of houses, collaged atop one another in a pile of miscellaneous discarded histories and ephemera, weeds and overgrown cultivations adorn homes and black trash bags alike. These works are water colour on paper, in continuation of the Brush Park Series as pictured on this site, and exhibited at Page Blackie in April.

:Again using photographs taken in Detroit I am creating an interiors series, investigating once public and private spaces in water colour as photo realist documentations.

:From moulds cast from American houses keys, I plan to produce 31,000 ceramic white pieces. This work is in direct reference to the alarming scale of Detroit’s home abandonment and foreclosure figures at 2010.

New York New York

I’m currently residing in New York, on a self initiated {non institutional} residency. I came to the US primarily to photograph and experience Detroit, here in New York I plan to create a new body of work in response to this. Immersing myself in my practice is a necessary luxury, to diversify, consider and research without the distractions of a commitment to the daily grind.

Site currently under construction

This may take a while.