Nominated for: Nagoya University of the Arts Prize
My goal is to create a mysterious world for the viewer to explore; populated with desperate people and soiled mattresses aimed to make your skin crawl all covered in a dense fog for good measure. I make scenes that seem both real and unreal, creating an atmosphere of discomfort that allows you to feel as if you were there in the room watching a person sleep or failing to catch their eye during conversation. I focus on subtle use of value and colour to create a surreal environment, often hazy and dreamlike to highlight the figures and allow to viewer to relate the vague landscape to their own experiences. My work process is very physical in the use of paint and various brushes and techniques to apply it. I use oil and gouache because of their re-workability which allows me to erase and start over at the drop of a hat.