Artist Statement
I am interested in ideas about faith/science, intelligent design/chaos, creation/evolution, love/belief.
In this body of work I have created pictures in photoshop combining images from a variety of sources to celebrate a range of beliefs about our origins in a quirky, surreal way. I enjoy using Renaissance paintings, (Adam and Eve from Netherlandish paintings, animals from Bosch etc.) to represent ideas of God, faith, love, creation. These are combined with images from science books to represent evolution, man‐made, science, progress. The technique of gesso transfer allowed me to faithfully represent Renaissance paintings. Into these I built evolutionary concepts symbolised by organs and cells etc. In some ways the oil painted parts infer todays focus on scientific proof, which some see as challenging ideas of faith and a supreme creator. My belief is that faith and science work beautifully together as visually suggested in some of the work.
Alterpeace celebrates my love of titles and word play which is an important part of my practice. It references the altered peace we sometimes feel when confronted by surrealist art, similarly when our personal beliefs are challenged. And of course many of the historical images are from altarpieces with their rich narrative component. This body of work has been produced for my MFA at Canterbury University, School of Fine Arts.
ALTERPEACE
2010
Edition: 4
215mm x 220mm
Stitch bound.
Hard Cover - Book cloth with gold foil emboss.
This book was created as documentation for my Masters in Painting at
The University Of Canterbury, 2010.
It contains the body of work exhibited for my Masters show held at the School
Of Fine Arts Gallery at the University in May 2011.