May 23rd opened my solo show that has been in the works for the past 3 years! The opening was a hit, a big thank you to Seesaw for hosting this exhibition and The Peer Hat for offering a venue to continue the celebration.
The works in this exhibition are a document of my life as I have lived it these past three years. I’m not just speaking of dwelling in the studio, hunched over canvases and agonising over details and lines and dizzying, black and white patterns, but of the mental process of creation. My dreams became an infinite pool of unconscious inspiration. I would wake and write and gather these stories from my somnial mind and with waking hand attempt to reconstruct them in line and form. This technique grew and refined. Soon, I found myself engaging in a myriad of practices designed to draw out something hidden, whether within or without my mind.
My practice over the three years has shifted massively to focus on working more with acrylics and colour. It’s created this intense dichotomy of monochrome, monomaniacal moments and punchy, potent paintings that capture the energy of an instance. As a living entity itself, I’ve come to accept the growth and changes in my practice and its interests, as an unintended extension of my initial desire to draw from the unconscious.
Whilst the themes of my paintings increasingly draw from solid reality, the actors and their animal heads largely remain figures from a dream. Why I choose to draw these figures this way is a complex mix of a desire to evoke aspects of humanity better performed in a cloak more bestial and my own personal attachments to these creatures.
Having spent the first quarter of the year, journeying to the land of my grandparents, in Jamaica, staying in a small village, largely populated by descendants of my great-grandfather, as part of a larger expedition which included forays in New York and Mexico City, I’m brimming with excitement for my next series of work inspired by this period. This exhibition features the first in that series ‘The Setup’ which tells the true story of a dance battle at a Jamaican Wake.
