ARTIST STATEMENT
Awakening can be subtle or radical, sometimes fluxing between these extremes. Awakening, through artmaking, can evoke acceptance of existence in all its beauty, cruelty, and suffering, or it can unearth cynicism and detachment from actuality and self. Creating art may liberate an artist to explore the darkness and despair of existence, exposing the rawness and margins of thoughts and emotions. Artists, risk descension into an obsessive exploration of the shadowy realms of reality and mind -spaces that few venture into. At its bleakest, artmaking decomposes reality to a point where it becomes distorted and lost, and the mind descends into turmoil.
ARTWORK PROCESS
I was intrigued in how – or even if, artmaking could have a negative effect on mental wellbeing, and decided to explore concepts such as how artmaking can make some more aware of the horrors around them. My influences (Andrew Joseph Keith and Craig Walsh) drew me to sculpting simplified figures through a subtractive process and to using projectors to imply story or connection between the image and the object being projected onto. I had to significantly troubleshoot to get the projector at the right height and distance etc, and when making the proportions of the face and head match.
