“It is a strange situation. The space we love is unwilling to remain permanently enclosed. It deploys and appears to move elsewhere without difficulty; into other times, and on different planes of dream and memory.” The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard
Space, for me, is an expressive aspect of culture. I agree with Bachelard and believe that the spaces we know and inhabit have as profound an impact on us as we do on them. Space reveals how a society is organized and societal needs. Public space is a key character, the protagonist, in my work. Public places and institutional spaces intrigue me because of their shared communal nature. They are where people gather and interact. For that reason I find them filled with invisible history and tension. It is that sense of timeless existence and the accrual of experiences that I attempt to depict in my work. It serves as a way to delve into ideas about isolation, communication, human interaction and time. Through the depiction of various spaces I question what is real and investigate how we see and understand the world around us. Attributes are not fixed in my work; I attempt to make them fluid and subtle so that a viewer’s experiences affect the understanding of each piece and one’s interpretation can evolve and change over time. My interests range from small details to complex plans and from specific sources to imagined spaces. My paintings and drawings originate from these ideas.