As creators and consumers of art, I feel we are perhaps indoctrinated to accept that only the solemn and serous is great and valuable. I advocate fun art; and consider my practice to be playful, cheeky and unpretentious. I primarily use text in my practice, as I consider it to be a confident and no-frills method of communication as well as perhaps being more accessible to people who may feel alienated by contemporary art.
Although I trained as a painter, much of my current work is produced digitally. I believe digital production techniques are a completely pertinent approach in the age of mechanical reproduction. The distinction between an original and a copy is irrelevant in a digital world where the work only exists as a copy, like much of the subject matter from which I draw inspiration.
Many of my themes are derived from my morbid fascination with trash culture, and I am filled with intrigue for its place within the arts, which is traditionally high culture. LoveMade Me Hairy (2009-10) is a collection of brightly coloured posters attributed to 'real life story culture', with a specific focus on magazines such as Chat, and Take a Break. Combined markets of over 9 million consume a weekly dose of real life stories, and ghastly revelations are exposed in the sexed-up tales of deformed body parts, murky family secrets, and naturally (!), sick babies.
More recently my projects explore the impact of modern technology on our evolving language. T9 is shiv (Parts I & II) (2010) demonstrates how the articulation of lust is reduced to truncated, base messages through the use of “textonyms” – words that are accidentally typed using the same sequence of keys on a phone's numeric keypad as the intended word. Our Father, (2011) a modern take on an illuminated manuscript, shows how any text, no matter how sacred, can be translated to a message fit for Internet chat. These nonsensical imperatives playfully allude to the role of detective adopted by the recipient in order to decipher these compacted and coded communiqués that often provide a disturbing or humorous outcome.
