I am obsessed with psychology; The way we think, why we make certain decisions, how we perceive and speak to ourselves. I itch to question answers as well as the questions themselves. I am an over thinker, over analyser and over planner. I am engrossed by the potential for every question to lead to a story (which many close to me will be fully aware of).
As our ability to listen and our attention spans diminish, the importance of visual story telling increases. Scrolling at speed is now a normal way to absorb information, so we need people who can create visual answers to questions, visual depictions of life stories and community narratives. Visual stories give people the chance to stop and listen with their eyes, allowing us to keep learning whilst enjoying and not being too hurt by the process.
Art forms these visual stories through film, animation, graphic design etc. The artistic method of these messages is likely to define who saves that post to watch again later, who shares it and to what audience, and most importantly how it will be remembered. Audiences whether online or in person can be so finely defined if you take the time to break down who your consumer is, who their friends are, where they shop, what they watch, where they eat etc. Knowing all of that information and remembering that every element of our lives has a visual connotation, and collating all of that visual information to work from, can only lead you to create an unignorable visual story for that audience. It can make your unknown, brand-new brand, feel familiar and there is your connection.
No one story is ever alone. Every experience will be experienced differently but no matter how individualistic a piece of art may be, there will always be another person who relates, even if just a fraction. This ability to visually communicate with such emotion and capture human experience in a painting/sculpture/film is integral to our ability to relate to one another.
Words are not enough anymore and potentially never were. The civil rights movement had been saying the same things for years before they were heard. Maybe it was the crowds, the paintings, the visuals of what the world was becoming that eventually made people stand to attention, to open their ears and listen. After all light travels faster than sound; We see red before we read ‘stop’, we see pain in peoples eyes before we hear their story. But we will always see our own lives before we see the lives of others and until we are exposed to them we may well never see them at all (how cults are born).
A line could mean so much. For me they are a satisfactory release of expression, a form of natural movement that not even I can repeat exactly, an irreplicable mark of permanence proving my existence in that moment. They feel like pulling an uncomfortable string from your body. A satisfaction that can only be metaphorically explained, not scientifically measured. Proof in itself that so much of life can’t be controlled, reasoned, explained, and must simply be accepted for what it is. Whatever that may be.
My work is about me exploring being present. Letting go of control and following ‘instinct’ without challenge. Physically repeating instruction through paint, and verbally responding/reflecting through poetry. The process behind my work is constantly challenged by my inherit need to meticulously control my surroundings, past, present and future. It’s not so much about what materials I use but how I use them and when; Violently in a moment of rage, compressed in a moment of sadness, or freely in a space of tranquillity and relinquishment. Leaving my work at the hands of emotion and subconscious allows my work to truly represent me and my connections within this world we share.