Texts

X-Figure

An enigmatic sign, the figure/form ‘X’ conjures multiple meanings as a symbol, number and text. Traversing cultures, beliefs and knowledge systems, an X can prohibit and denounce, approve and correct, combine and connect. As a figure, X expresses human presence - from a mark found in prehistoric caves to the symbol for a female chromosome universal to women and men. It encapsulates mystery and allure – an unknown variable, an axis on a map, sign of hidden treasure and signifies special qualities, the ‘X-factor’. View

Subject-Object

In the space between subject and object, the I-figure engages the spirit, senses and mind. Stripped of expressive content yet embedded with symbolism and narrative, the I-frame remains open to each person's understanding and perceptions of absence and presence, Other and Self. On each encounter, the artwork looks back like a subliminal mirror of I/One, an affirmation which reshapes the subjective through an objective lens. View

The abstract figure's purpose and values shift across cultures and paradigms. In creation stories and ancient knowledge systems, totem-like figures relay spirits and ancestors, manifesting also as first-forms. In geo-politics, the first person pronoun is a symbol of agency and humanity, a fundamental platform of human rights. As a Roman numeral meaning One or First, 'I'' commences a sequence, asserts primacy, origins and identity. In philosophy and psychology the I-subject evokes the conscious and subconscious in both human and spirit realms. Its imprint changes across languages such as te reo Māori where 'I' connects the spoken word with the past tense, and in Asian languages where it makes the sound for 'love'. View

Glazed I’s

The Glazed I's transform the properties of glass into a space for deep meditation. No longer a protective film covering and mediating independent artworks, the I-glass is instead a liminal sheath, a membrane mediating between states of being and mind. ‘Glazed I’s’ infer impaired vision and blurring of content yet the I-form sharpens a viewer's focus. Proposing a distinctive character through form, media and title, each I-figure invites its beholder to physically and philosophically occupy an-other personality as they view the artwork and situation, amidst reflections and shadows. View

The Allegory

Text based visual images and shapes, across a range of media, explore the idea of an allergory – a form of narrative and/or visual image that extends or sustains meanings.  Testing a founding premise of minimalism, ‘less is more’, the artworks take a reductive approach while generating compound images and meanings through materials, form and situation. View

Still Painting

The Still Paintings document the relationship between painting/art and its environment. Embedded texts are revealed via short and long term exposure to ultraviolet light. Harnessing the ‘harsh New Zealand light’ praised by modernist painters and feared by art conservators, the Still Painting requires new conservation conventions. In a reversal of genre and process, the landscape does the painting. View

Fields

Grass Work

Wall hung and alive, the Grass Works are constructed from specially selected and prepared turf, groomed for each artwork through cycles of seeding, rolling, trimming, watering, deprivation of and exposure to light. Densely hand-stitched to canvas and board supports, the swathe of earth becomes the sculptural clay, painterly substrate and ground, and stage for slow-performance art. In full flourish, the ubiquitous grass is a mass multiple Duchampian-like readymade. In constant reproduction and endless cycles of growth and dormancy, it is a 'beingmade' – a permanent art object that remains in flux via internal operating systems and performative materials, a self-contained artwork in permanent progress. View

The object demands attention, carving a direct relationship with its audience, with its presentation and wellbeing closely tied to curator or collector levels of commitment to its care. In this sense, the Grass Work elevates the oft-ignored landscape into the inner sphere. People find it hard to resist reaching out to touch while curators install signs saying 'keep off the grass'. As geometric abstraction, a field typically experienced as cool and distant, the Grass Work offers an organic abstraction – tactile, unruly, needy, warm and wet. View

Magnetic Fields

Defying gravity, the magnetic fields offer surreal metallic landscapes connected with the pulling power of the moon. Thousands of polished steel shafts hover and project from linen membranes, suspending the process of making and presenting art in a state of flux. Cold metal and needle sharp points contrast with the work's seductive beauty and illusion of fragility. In a play of movement, shadow and light, the surface renders impressionist brushstrokes or expressionist gestures. Light plays on the steel, shadows rake and create a fringe on the wall.  Fine hair-like surfaces tempt touch and close inspection, risking a prick to soft skin or poke in the eye. View

Concrete Art

Wall hung and featherweight, the carved block works delve into cultural, metaphysical and structural foundations. Absorbing warmth by day and emitting heat at night, the block grid mimics the function and form of the ubiquitous concrete block, a standard unit of modern construction with age-old roots. Precisely carved, compressed and framed, the artwork contests a modernist ‘concrete art’ movement which stripped emotion from abstraction and placed it within the context of nation-building ideals. View

Nappy Work

Repeating units of stacked newborn nappies/diapers stretch open in a soft and absorbing monochromatic grid. Estimated to take over 500 years to breakdown in landfill, the 'disposable work' contests art conservation conventions. Hundreds of unused readymade units morph into transactional beingmades which discretely absorb, swell and recede while padding substrates and walls, dampening noise and loading space with meaning. Feelings of vulnerability, nakedness, and memory expand into values-based questions about humanity, culture, conservation and universality. View

Frames

Exterior Frames

Agnostic as to perspective and sited sensitively in a landscape, the Frames capture, reflect and conflate view and viewer. Where a frame typically outlines, contains or fixes an image, these works accentuate and engage their contexts to generate layered content in constant flux. Mediums and materials, hinged to external conditions, create depths in transparency, reflection, shadow and light. View

Interior Frames

Contained within architectural or articulated space, the Interior Frames develop a conceptual structure, siting body, mind and emotions amidst absorbing or unfamiliar contexts. Focus turns to the absent presence, including a defined or complete sense of self. A desire to navigate, prompted by the work, shifts perceptions and widens the range of perspectives in the frame. Dichotomies become fluid and a form of release emerges from within the artwork's formal constraints. View