BA (Hons) Painting
Psychological âsplittingâ renders the world a chaotic, unstable and at times threatening place. We bury in the subconscious those aspects of our nature that we would rather be oblivious of, or project them on to things outside of ourselves, which denies our complete nature of being. My work is grounded in exploring the body as the site of both dread and fascination, in which binary opposites collide, collapsing the distance between things and revealing their common truths. The work is informed by the ambivalent responses the body evokes when it breaches imposed boundaries. By merging disparate elements, and referencing imagery that is ordinarily concealed I render reality not as divided and rational but, like the body, in a constant state of flux and transformation. A diverse range of grotesque imagery informs my work such as the renaissance cabinets of curiosities whose contents challenged the limits of the known world, and the ambivalent treatment of the wounded, abject body in Religious and French Romantic art. Rendering the immateriality of thoughts and feelings and fusing disparate symbols where flesh is always a unifying ground, destabilises the boundary between subject and object and more archaically Self and Other. The work has no regard for ontological categorization and chaotic inner narratives are made tangible, which questions what is considered realism. However the work is not aggressive, as it acknowledges the sensitivity and vulnerability this destabilisation creates. www.zandean.com Artfetch Graduate show review