Artist Statement (Draft 2)

My work has always used nature as a major source of inspiration, not only for its beauty but also for the more grotesque side of nature which is equally as fascinating. I delve into the aspects of the symbiotic or parasitic relationships between organisms such as fungi and their hosts. Whether they’re living alongside the organisms around them, or are parasites, damaging or killing the organisms they live on. I try to convey the uneasiness we feel when looking at such relationships in nature through my work.

Creating a response from the audience is as much a part of my work as the work itself. With previous works I have made how the audience can view the work illicit emotional responses; uneasy or self-conscious as they edge around the work that is often across the floor space, in fear of damaging it. The work prevents them from being simply passive, and the ideas of non-confinement in my work are one factor that creates this. The artwork appears to take over the space, the walls, the floor, and could continue to advance towards the audience also creating anxious feelings within the viewer. 

After looking into the work of Giuseppe Penone and society’s relationship with nature in his work, and botanical artists such as Sarah Simblet, drawing has begun to take a more central role in my practice. Observing forms directly from nature, the works then become more abstract as the forms change through the drawing process.  Altering and mutating the natural forms until they no longer represent the reality of nature, but instead become strange an unearthly. Looking at nature under a microscope can also illicit these same feelings, where what is viewed underneath the microscope becomes otherworldly, peculiar. Bringing nature up through scientific methods such as botanical illustration and the microscope, the work that result from these investigations develop more organically. No longer rigid and accurate like the scientific analysis of nature, but instead more intuitive and impulsive, the work seems to progress across the page naturally.