Portfolios

When producing narrative work, I return to themes from history. This dialogue can connect the viewer to the past and gives us validity as humans. Concepts of purity, grace, pity and forgiveness, while less at the center of contemporary art-making, have not vanished.

When the Church relinquished its role as patron, artists breathed in freedom and began to exhale more self-concerned work. The Church had provided focus, yet seemed restrictive. Artists assumed that freedom would nurture creativity, but creativity is the manifestation of a problem solved. Absolute freedom is the absence of problems, hence the lack of need to solve, discuss and disagree through art.

This statement first accompanied an exhibition on sacred space which asked whether sacred space is relevant in today's society or not. And is one really transfixed through sacred acts beyond one's control? Does God make things happen through a saint's actions or is the saint an intercessor to God? The saints that I have depicted possess no power beyond themselves and simply live in a state of grace. This grace allows the impossible to seem possible and the supernatural to seem common. We all possess the ability to sway the world in a saintly way. The sentiments expressed in these portfolios can be described as looking for the miraculous in the mundane.

As a student, I was influenced by an exhibition of the photographs by Duane Michals, in particular his series on Christ in contemporary society. The images had titles like "Christ eating cat food with a pensioner in Brooklyn". These images took the classical theme of "Christ's example" and framed it within a very modern context. I wrestle with this dichotomy in the studio and hope to continue so for a long time.