Recent Acrylic Paintings (2024 onwards)

This was my return to acrylic painting after some time away from it working in digital. It was liberating to work on a large scale for "Sutro Heights" and was in fact the biggest painting I had done to date.

It is a POV painting, partially inspired by David Hockney's POV photo collages. 

I am still exploring the ideas of jeopardy, sketch and completion in these paintings. Many of the prominent marks on the painting are the initial brushstrokes or chalk impressions put down first on to the canvas. I was also experimenting with the idea of textile or tattoo textures as details.

The following were pregnancy & birth paintings, influenced by classical nativity & religious art, created around the time of having my first child.

They still echoed the themes of lost bay area animals, I also play with the idea of art history and personal history, remixing elements of classical compositions with pieces and places of my own life.

I added a gold layer of paint as the undercoat for these and allowed it to shine through where possible. It reminded me of the majesty & mystery of early Christian art, which I really love.

Again, I attempted to create a tension of completion, allowing initial marks on a canvas to remain prominent. Leaving different layers of detail and completion to play off one another. Deciding what to leave undone (I want there to be pauses in the painting like pauses in music or speech or writing).

I like the idea of the experience of viewing a painting to be more akin to archaeology, where you are able to observe the whole history of the creation of the painting through the marks visible, where the decisions are laid out in full view, which I believe is the most honest (and vulnerable) way of working.