This work featured in the solo show "Made For You And Me" at The Compound Gallery, Oakland, CA in 2013.
"My recent work returns to thinking about the landscape, and to people making their places within it. It is about permanence versus impermanence, and about home and belonging.
I started making these paintings by writing out the lyrics to Woody Guthrie’s song “This Land Is Your Land” across all of the panels. Fragments of these can still be seen in places, though they serve more as a statement of intent than as a visual element. Having the lyrics there provided a sort of directional compass whilst making the paintings since the tone of the song articulated the tone I was aiming for in the paintings so well. I also wanted to give renewed importance to the abstract dimensions of the work, and so the accumulated layers of marks and color that the images float among are given equal weight in the final image.
The wooden posts that make up Grove were previously supports for freeway guardrails. The life-cycle of this old wood, from tree to freeway to abstract-forest, speaks simply about nature, human progress, and transformation."
"My recent work returns to thinking about the landscape, and to people making their places within it. It is about permanence versus impermanence, and about home and belonging.
I started making these paintings by writing out the lyrics to Woody Guthrie’s song “This Land Is Your Land” across all of the panels. Fragments of these can still be seen in places, though they serve more as a statement of intent than as a visual element. Having the lyrics there provided a sort of directional compass whilst making the paintings since the tone of the song articulated the tone I was aiming for in the paintings so well. I also wanted to give renewed importance to the abstract dimensions of the work, and so the accumulated layers of marks and color that the images float among are given equal weight in the final image.
The wooden posts that make up Grove were previously supports for freeway guardrails. The life-cycle of this old wood, from tree to freeway to abstract-forest, speaks simply about nature, human progress, and transformation."
