RED DOOR MAGAZINE 26

Is your art affected by the current environment
of the world? And does it have a specific
message for a specific audience?
Other than making observations based on my
own working knowledge, I don’t know that I have
a cogent, singular message to impart. Certainly,
I have concerns about the direction the world is
going, that are the backdrop to my work.
I’d be entirely lying if I said that the last four years,
haven’t been the dark fertilizer which formed the
seeds of the last two series.
Except, it’s rather like pasting together a collage
that might include Durkheim’s Anomie, Manly
P Hall’s philosophies on the Golden Ratio,
Leonardo’s the Vitruvian man, Oppenheimer’s
infamous quote and the chain reaction that
triggers nuclear fission. It’s all contained beneath
the surface tension of a work like “Origins of
Death”, but decoding a specific message only
works by someone’s own willingness to dig
deeper, and draw the same conclusions.
How has your artistic practice and aspirations
changed during lockdown / pandemic?
Since I live in quite a remote area (Julian, CA)-
hardly, if at all. At the beginning, getting materials
like brushes was a bit of a challenge, which did
force me to be a little more experimental with
textures. So rather than being as precise as I might
have, depicting something such as gravel on a
landscape or cloud formations, I’d use plastic
bags, crumpled paper, sponges, clogged brushes,
scalpel blades- anything to hand that might be
more impressionistic than meticulous.
Artists are a solitary lot by virtue of what we do,
only ever venturing out of our caves at showtime. If
there’s been any change, other than existential, I’d
have to say it’s the gallery as a virtual experience.
Attending openings in one’s pajamas.
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