Balconi - Sumei, detail
Every corner in a house, every angle in a room, every inch of secluded space in which we like to hide, or withdraw into ourselves, is a symbol of solitude for the imagination.
Gaston Bachelard
When experiencing the world, one cannot overlook the structures that surround us and give us shelter. The house itself is our first world. Structures house our dreams, memories, secrets and failures. Each space and corner represents a time in our lives. Aged structures retain a history of the experiences and thoughts of its inhabitants.
Memories rub off the insides and outsides of the spaces that exist and become a part of us, whether it is our memories of a similar place or the building’s memories of other inhabitants.
When I visit a place, I document my experience with photographs. While painting, I try to pare down the intricate decorative elements and shapes which speak the most of a place. The spaces painted might be in negative or positive form, letting the surface show through. The technique turns the structures into silhouette and the impression left acknowledges the experience.
My paintings are object like. They reference wood boxes and protrude off the wall more than a painting on canvas. The Victorian culture with its precious objects and decorative architecture and ironwork inspires my paintings. The wrought iron fence serves as a timeline of my life with all of its imperfections and beauty. Because of their small scale, the "boxes" have a precious quality, which is increased by the way they are created. Small objects create a sense of nostalgia, which I feel while I am painting them.
I place the paintings in my lap in close proximity to my body. The layering of memories, in addition to transparent and opaque painted layers, illustrates the wisps of thought that arise when remembering a specific location. Painting in such a devoted way, will hopefully reflect the closeness of the viewer’s gaze. The idea that the viewer will share the same space as I while creating the painting is fascinating. Sharing an experience through an object relates to the idea of memories contained in a space. The process of constructing the “boxes” and then painting them is vital to me.
We live in a “bigger is better world”, I find it important to go back to the past where it was the small things that mattered.