Exhibition
Altered Images - Duckett and Jeffreys Gallery
A solo exhibition of recent work titled 'Altered Images'
The work in this exhibition fits into the figurative tradition but is influenced by contemporary ideas related to Post Modernism. The works are frequently transcribed or appropriated from historical sources that have interested me within the canon of European figurative painting.
In some cases I have taken a painting and reproduced it as faithfully as possible but then ‘altered’ the original with the inclusion of contemporary elements.
A period in the history of art that I find intriguing is the Dutch tradition of still life and floral painting of the 17th Century that uses objects as metaphors to express religious and philosophical beliefs. The ephemeral transient nature of life is exposed as are the moral dangers in the pursuit of earthly pleasures. Also it appears to me a ‘sub text’ emerges – a sensuous almost erotic pleasure in the object - which seems different or even at odds to the original rather puritanical intentions, Therefore I have made some works using selected images from the originals to try and deliberately emphasise and exaggerate this sub text.
In other paintings I have superimposed references from different periods of art history, for example ‘Pop Art’ from the 1960’s, over the traditional still life motif. Humour and irony are used playfully to form different narratives.
