Perpetual Fluidity
Acrylic on canvas
16" x 16"
2005

This was my first ever painting, started and completed at the age of twenty. I had never used paints before, and, in refusing instruction – teaching can only have a negative effect on individual expression – I began an arduous but ultimately rewarding process of trial and error.

As well as being my only acrylic painting to date, Perpetual Fluidity is, along with Black Water (2002), uncharacteristic of my present output for being entirely improvised; I did not outline the subjects in pencil before painting them.

By the time I had finished this painting, I had crystallised my intentions for subsequent works. Simply put, there were two standards I wanted to uphold that would hopefully not interfere too noticeably with my natural stylistic and technical progression:

1.) A general feeling of aesthetic warmth that contrasts with thematic coldness

My plan was to explore negative subject matter, such as child abuse, torture and warped eroticism, using harmonic curves and earthly colours that would leave an impression of ambivalence in the viewer. Are my paintings positive, negative or both? With the employment of appropriate tones and shades, it is entirely possible to make an aftermath appear a utopia, or an Elysium akin to perdition. I believe that only when such a paradoxical approach is embraced and successfully executed can the panoptic subjectivity of these elements be exposed and, in time, understood.

2.) Anthropomorphism

I’ve always desired organic subject matter in my paintings, especially that which compasses human biology and natural phenomena. I intended that very few subjects of mine lack roots in traditional physiology, and that even those borne of contemporaneous design, such as computers and locomotives, would be quasi-personified. I’m not sure where this desire truly stems from, though my guess would be a general suspicion of technological progress (especially when influenced by totalitarian mentalities), as well as an urge to maintain artistic purity in both subject and discipline.

This was (and remains) my intention, so hopefully these two standards are evident in all my other paintings.