By examining the practice of graffiti artists throughout derelict, abandoned and restricted urban architecture, I am reflecting on the performative, spatializing process through which writers transform marginalised dead space into a specific and unique stage and the resulting traces that are retained through these interstitial interventions.
The work evolves through investigating the process of stencilling; bearing in mind the dialogue and constant contradictions between Street Art, Graffiti and Fine Art and considering painting as a starting point while drawing on influences in American hip hop, Asian calligraphy, semiotics and mark making. Cultivating 2-D images into sculptural format whilst striving to maintain a figurative integrity and by at times removing the stencil from the process of image transfer, it can in its own right be appreciated for the physicality and distinct formal quality that is often overlooked as merely an agent of control, suitable for restraining and directing more important media.
Drawing from the painstaking attention to detail and preparation of Jeff Wall and Martha Cooper, the inventiveness and progressively evolving originality of Blek Le Rat, Shepard Fairey and Logan Hicks and the considered approach of Richard Wright, Richard Wilson and Gordon Matta-Clark among others, my current work is largely a contemporary response to the phenomena of the google image stencil. It is an investigation into the merging of dimensional qualities and the barriers that can be broken as well as the restrictions that can be imposed - it challenges the process of development and the role of the stencil as a tool and a product through the creation process. Paired with the subject matter of abandoned space, the stencil naturally relates to the gritty urban imagery and yet allows an impartiality that classical painting denies.
This exploration continues throughout my painting practice where I am interested in the deconstruction of the portrait and it's integration into it's surroundings, attempting to capture the motion and speed of modern society.This process incorporates media such as spray paint, industrial and household paints and collage in an endeavour to lend energy, dynamism and imagination to an image. My treatment of this genre often involves the deconstruction or fragmentation of a subject, looking for the line between obscuring and emphasising identity.
