Temporal Disjunction
Collage and cellulose lacquer on digitally printed canvas
42x55cm
Temporal Disjunction is like a reverse of Marxist Millionaires, a colour background with black and white rectangles placed on top this time. It uses values I learned from John Stezaker about overlaying images and having the content of each interact. It talks about traditional painting and modern image capture methods. The images are also images found on dark corners of the internet, and references the paranormal, the story of a doctor administering surgery on himself, the Jonestown Massacre and other macabre and mysterious topics that occupy shady corners of the internet. This overlaying of modern cultural topics over the traditional idea of beauty compares the past and the present.
Dark Forest of the Romantics
Collage on paper
42x28cm
Untitled
Collage on paper
42x29cm
Untitled
Collage, ink and graphite on paper
42x29cm
Ignore the Chaos
Three collages on paper
42x29cm each
Lady Di collages
Two collages on paper
59.4×84.1cm each
Two A1 collages exploring the Royal Family, Princess Diana, the aristocracy and British culture. The imagery depicts the bizarre opulence and pomp of the monarchy that continues into the the present day (both idolised and criticised), the contradicting nature of Diana’s role, and references to the violence that the historical system of power has always relied on to survive. Whether that be the violent policing of the British royal subjects, or the colonial violence inflicted on other nations in the name of the empire.
Circular experiment
59.4×84.1cm
An experiment in creating a swirling circular movement in the composition, with textures and different size elements caught in orbit like space debris, inspired by the work of Julie Mehretu , particularly the piece Stadia II.
Audience to a murder
59.4×84.1cm
Cluster grouping
59.4×84.1cm
Numinous Dread Collage #4
Collage on paper
7x15cm
Numinous Dread is a topic I researched for my dissertation and I think is something I find interesting for it’s ability to marry together themes of existentialism and spirituality. I am constantly searching for truth and answers with my work and in my life. I want there to be a set of rules that we can fit the chaos of life in, but at the same time I get disappointed with the sometimes uninspiring results of science and rationality and long for the mystery and excitement of spirituality and the supernatural. Numinous Dread is the feeling of terror that fills someone who comes across something holy, it is the forbearer to a fully realised spiritual practice, it is very similar to the sublime. It is a kind of mystical terror, a feeling very deep and primal and suggests the presence of something higher. Francis Bacon used to talk about ‘the violence of existence’, the closer he observed his subjects and the more accurately he presented them, the more violence appeared in his images, as if one just has to look closer at life to see the violence it is made up of. These collages try to show that.
Numinous Dread Collage #3
Collage and acrylic on paper
25x35cm
Numinous Dread Collage #6
Collage on paper
12x15cm
Numinous Dread Ink Drawing #1
Solvent ink and collage on paper
7x15cm
Numinous Dread Collage #2
Collage, graphite powder and ink on paper
A3
Numinous Dread Ink Drawing #2
Solvent ink and collage on paper
7x15cm
Numinous Dread Collage #1
Collage, graphite powder and ink on paper
A3
Numinous Dread Ink Drawing #3
Solvent ink and collage on paper
15x7cm
Numinous Dread Collage #7
Collage on paper
7x15cm
Numinous Dread Collage #8
Collage on paper
15x7cm
Numinous Dread Collage #9
Collage on paper
A3
This collage (as well as some of the others in this series) utilises sample cards for granite and marble and repurposes them as images of star-filled space or in this case TV static. They say TV static and white noise is the TV aerial picking up waves of leftover radiation from the big bang. So white noise is a visual representation of the ether that we came from and we will return to when we die. The old woman has an aerial made of tree branch coming out of her head connecting to the white noise above, the violence of existence is depicted all around her in life and then the void of the universe is beginning to consume her once again. This static is even framed in a TV screen off to the left to show this connection.
Numinous Dread Collage #10: Creatures Between Worlds
Collage on paper
A3
When making this collage I was thinking about layers: the layers of consciousness described in psychoanalysis and the layers of reality discussed in philosophy, spirituality and quantum physics. To me this collage talks about the dread we are sometimes faced with when thinking about those ideas. It illustrates the pockets of violence in nature: the murky underlayer that is revealed when a seemingly innocent surface level is peeled back. It makes me think about the sublime fear humanity experiences when faced with their insignificance in the face of an incomprehensibly large universe: a fear of the cosmic void.
Numinous Dread Collage #11
Collage and acrylic on canvas
40x50cm
Another figure, dwarfed when faced with an opening that allows him to see properly the first time the terrifying nature of reality in all its violence. A moment of numinous dread and the beginning of a spiritual journey. A sublime experience, one I liken to Batailles’ theory of a ‘limit experience’.
I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up
Collage on paper
A2
Sun Worship
Collage, acrylic and graphite powder on paper
A3
Sketchbook Collages
A selection of various sized collages from a few of my sketchbooks