E-portfolio & Artist Statement: As an artist my work responds to current interests and enquiries at any one moment in my life. I focus any research towards inspiration surrounding me and I would like to make my work link more to current world issues, surrounding politics and discrimination. My most recent project was entitled ‘Site and Identity’, which was a broad basis for my ideas but eventually I decided to look at how a site can represent identity. Personally, I interpreted this by visiting my father’s house for a week which I view as my second home, where I saw this incredible sunset one afternoon that left me breathless. It was just myself and this glowing multicoloured sky. With the house being in the middle of nowhere, I felt completely isolated but content in this moment. Photographing the sunset, I then decided to use this feeling as a main factor in this project. Researching how psychological spaces affect us and finding more information on the history of landscapes, a genre of painting I had never fully explored, I decided using this exact moment as inspiration for this theme would be ideal. To further expand my knowledge as an artist, I did not only use a new genre, but I effected the style of the paintings I completed as a result by painting one with unblended impasto paint and another created with a palette knife. Prior to this I had researched into the Japanese Ukiyo-e prints of landscapes and how the simplicity of these lines changed how we view landscapes. As a result, I was curious to create my own prints and I made a series of lino prints creating two series of printed pieces. Still using acrylic paint for a sunset background these prints were not only successful but resulted in working effectively as a series due to the variation in paint across the prints, showing a transition much like that of a sunset. For my future work I would again like to push myself out of my comfort zone. Whilst I thrive within the area of studying the human form I would like to experiment with the meanings behind the portraits or life drawings I create. As I have grown as an artist I have found myself feeling the need to question why I am creating the work, what the message is and what effect I want the piece to have. I would like to believe I am far more concerned with the why than the what but truthfully the aesthetic appearance at the end of the piece still matters to me extremely. Therefore, I am determined to ensure I focus on the substance of my work and do not just obsess about the beauty of the piece. I am curious to find a way to make a piece powerful, both visually and emotionally.
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