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Artist's Statement
My early art education was mostly pre-20th Century: my art teacher looked like a French impressionist and
painted like one, too. I learnt not to use black, to avoid outlines, to draw and paint from life and to avoid
copying from magazines and photos. My technique was honed in life drawing classes.
Then I went to Goldsmiths and discovered modern art. It was a slap in the face: I reeled and withdrew into
books and life drawing. Gradually I saw the beauty and wit of conceptual art and started to discover artists
like Elizabeth Peyton, Marlene Dumas and Cecily Brown, who proved to me that painting was not dead. At
the same time I realised it was the immediate and ageless drawings and unfinished pieces of the old
masters that entranced me, rather than the 'proper' paintings. I began to combine the strong, fast line from
my life drawing with the vibrancy and sexiness of paint to create a response to the images I felt bombarded
by.
I now make a point of using second-hand material, often sourced from google image searches. The idea of
recycling images and objects that are past their sell-by-date, trashy, quaint or nostalgic appeals to me: by
painting them I hope to offer them up to a new audience. This applies to porn or the china figurines or the
Boucher paintings.
My most recent work stems from an interest in the fetishisation of the artist and the artist/model
relationship. From Vasari's Lives of the Great Artists to Anais Nin to contemporary celebrity culture we have
been fascinated by the romanticised figure as much as their work. I have begun to realise this might now
include me and that I should redress the balance with my "models". Until now I have been the Madame of
the house and not one of the whores. I hope these quasi-self portraits are also a reminder of the humour in
my work. |
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