A series of large scale monochrome paintings that use Victorian pornography as the source material. The pictorial space is created by the subject matter both feeding off itself and then reproducing or dividing out of itself. The sexual nature of the subject matter further enhancing this self reproduction across the picture plane. The staged nature of Victorian pornography ape a conservative type of 19th Century salon painting; the photography displays its corruption of societal conservative reserve, the mask of so called decency fallen away.
My idea was to use this imagery as a comment on a modern depravity, the decay into self-obsession, where our pictorial spaces used for communication have devolved into a pornographic display of narcissism and self-obsession. The victory of mass materialism has morphed the consumer into the consumer of themselves, a type of self-cannibalism.
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Four of these recent large scale monochrome paintings were shown alongside works from another series:’ Progress’ which also uses historical subject as a device or way to reflect upon the contemporary world.
The work was shown in the Art Otel Gallery space in Shoreditch London. In an added dramatic twist to the show; the pornographic paintings were censored half through the display period; after complaints from a visiting company of highly sensitive lawyers who made complaints to the hotel. The gallery decided to censor the work by covering over my paintings with large sheets of blank white paper, then a series of my earlier works were projected over the top. Though bizarre it seemed to illustrate a further idea that while the orgiastic pursuit of the self has no shame; a new rise in conservative puritanism seems to have been sucked into the vacuum or emptiness of this ravanous self pursuit.
Or maybe the lawyers just didn’t like my dirty pictures?
300cmx220cm
Acrylic on canvas
2025
mixed media on canvas
300cmx240cm
2025
Acrylic, ink and spray paint on canvas
300cmx240cm
2025
Charcoal, spray paint and acrylic
300cmx240cm
2025
120cmx150cm
acrylic on canvas
2025
Oil on canvas
140cmx170cm
2025
190cmx230cm
acrylic, charcoal, spray paint
and oil on canvas
2025
300cmx240cm
ink and spray paint ion paper
2025
300cmx240cm
ink and spray paint on paper
2025
ink and gouache on paper
85cmx120cm
2023
ink and acrylic on paper
85cmx120cm
2024
200cmx240cm
acrylic on canvas 2024
210cmx240cm
Graphite powder, ink and spray paint on canvas
2024
Oil on canvas
160cmx60cm
2016
Oil on Canvas
2x 160cmx80cm
2011
Interview made for the exhibition ‘Consumed’