The foundation of my practice is built on the exploration of human thought processes. Specifically, how we perceive, interpret, and construct narratives. How the brain can find patterns and form relationships between the most seemingly abstract components.
This line of inquiry drives the development of my current practice, manifesting itself in the form of digitally illustrated collage, animation, and decoupaged sculpture. My works aim to provoke thought surrounding meaning, rather than offering a single fixed answer. I aim to create an open-ended system, layered with symbols, objects and references, each carrying both objective and subjective meanings in order to generate dialogue, encompassing a broad range of themes including serious topics like politics and culture, but also elements of humour and absurdity are woven into the mix. This sits within a visual lineage that includes artists like Michael Martin Craig, Andy Warhol and Jaedoo Lee, to name a few. I’m drawn to the ways they handle colour, line, composition and use repetition.
My practice implements my research into Lacan's theory of signification, whereby I treat the imagery, or the 'components', within my collages like fragments of language forming an alphabet and functioning as words in a sentence. Although each component carries with it its own vocabulary, meaning doesn’t necessarily exist in just one isolated component, but in the relationship between them, and when brought together, they begin to speak to one another, reshaping each other's meaning through juxtaposition and a sense of visual syntax.
I use these components like you would use Lego bricks, building their connotations upon the innate preconceptions and contextualisation that the viewer brings, sparking deeper discussions on political, cultural, and global themes that are then re-projected back onto the work. For example, including pills, recognisable as birth control to certain individuals, could generate discussions on reproductive rights, reshaping the entire perception of the work's message. (I often include images of LEGO bricks within my collages as it's a humorous nod to this process.)
Perception, to put it simply is the collision of contexts through imagery and association. My work intends to explore this through sequence and composition asking how can we assemble images like signs or hieroglyphics to communicate an invisible or unstable or fixed narrative. This then raises the questions: how do I source my images, "components", and how do I choose to assemble them?
Upon reflection, deciding what images/components to add to my visual alphabet is a somewhat personal and intimate act, with the images I choose to depict originating from childhood, using toys to explore nostalgia, whilst also blending in references to media, books , global news and political issues, I've engaged with bringing a maturity to the selection process.
This selection process also involves in a sense more psychological imagery, at times exploring the subconscious as a source. Collecting and illustrating objects from my dreams, and harvesting imagery from my vocal stims, as someone with ADHD. (As evidenced in the phrase "oh balls" making several guest appearances in my works)
I feel my "hunting ground" for imagery to add to my “alphabet” knows no bounds and I’m not afraid to use personal imagery to explore meaning making, even illustrating and placing tampons and diva cups, indicating if I'm on my period, or adding my medications, Ivabradine and Bisoprolol to represent my heart condition and chronic illness. In this sense, my "alphabet" is the amalgamation and regurgitation of everything I ingest and experience physically, visually and psychologically.
I draw the images and not just find them because I don’t want my process to just be about research and assembly. Although in some ways I am a collage artist, I don’t see myself as a gatherer of found images, but a creator of images that I then combine to create my works. I need to draw these things how I envision them, to control their colour, their simplicity or complexity, and I feel that simply buying stickers or printing found images just wouldn’t have the same depth, and would in many ways de-personalise my works. In addition, I feel aesthetically I want each component to be stylistically similar so as to not steal focus and to control emphasis, there is a practicality to having consistency with multiple images. You wouldn’t necessarily type a paragraph with each letter in a different font.
I treat digital collage with the same tactile attention as analogue collage, layering my components to make new works whilst often repeatedly disassembling and reassembling them to create evolved works, resulting in my works not existing in just one single form. Working digitally lends itself to this process of collage allowing me to constantly ask "what if", what if this was a different colour, pattern or composition, as I am able to repeat and manipulate every component reworking a piece without damaging the content.
My ADHD is at the root of my practice, highlighted in my approach to composition. Being fuelled by its cognitive patterns, my works often mirror the manic sense of "all-at-once-ness [and constant] simultaneous happening" experienced by me as a neurodiverse individual. This results in bright and loud eclectic works where each component is fast, fragmented and deeply layered, almost fighting to be seen, creating an environment with little to no order; however, this is a half-truth. In my practice, I try to balance intention with serendipity. In some works I have used William S. Burroughs' dadaist cut-up technique to create a work with absolutely no pre-planned composition, embracing unpredictability as a medium, on occasion even accidentally forming humerous juxtapositions, such as the world's the worlds worst sex toy, and in other works I find myself grouping objects by shape or connotation resulting in more controlled narratives.This is where my alphabet transforms into a palette as I find myself trying to create a visual balance between colour, shape and scale.
Over the last year I have progressed from producing largely black and white artworks to using strong colour, as well as exploring animation and other non-2D art forms. My work is clearly aligning with the camp art movement both in its visual aesthetic and sensibilities as described by Sotang. After looking back I have realised how interwoven my ADHD is to my work’s process and a contributing factor to its visual aesthetic. Looking forward at the direction that is forming in my work I can see a path where there is a potential to use my works to inform and advocate for the neurodiverse community. I see the art I am producing now very much as a stage in an ongoing process of development, with a multitude of directions for my work to evolve, both conceptually and aesthetically, and into new media.