‘Parts’
‘Parts’ includes a collection of works that explores my interest in the absurd nature of the polarities that exist throughout life. The physicality and scale of this work varies from large paintings to tiny ceramic sculptures of a holdable size. There are bittersweet tendencies to the themes in my work that run throughout. I use symbols to externalize my internal landscape, exploring memories of childhood, the fear of grief, and the complexity of intimate relationships. The re-occurring symbol of the rocking horse in this body of work is based on a memory from childhood of my grandmother’s big rocking horse, she has in her living room. After the use of the rocking horse as an image to represent childhood, I thought about the common human behavior of rocking back and forth to self sooth. My Grandmother would say rocking is the first sign of madness. Yet we rock in rocking chairs when we grow older and play with rocking horses when we are young. I use my artistic practice in a comparable way, to soothe. I think of this work as a physical diary, a collection of found objects that I have held onto in some cases for years, like the tiny silver chair I have had since childhood. Aside from childhood symbols, I also paint and draw two figures that interlock and merge into one another. I see the figures interlocking on the canvas to be on a constant quest for fulfilment. Arms outstretched, one often reaching through the others’ orifice for their own missing part, also pictured as the moon or the sun in a vast and empty landscape. The circle is an important feature that can be identified in a number of these works. For myself, the circle could represent the polarities that keep the circle of life in harmony. Or in a more literal sense the sun or the moon in a landscape.