Moving On

So my second year work got a bit heavy going toward the end, with my focus moving from the dolphin slaughter in Taiji (looky) to a subject much closer to home.

It was a bit of a shock since I had categorically stated I never wanted to do work centred on myself, thinking it self-absorbed, but it really was apparent that I had some issues! (Don't we all).

While the Taiji paintings were about expressing my anger and frustration, it was clear my motivations didn't truly lie in the abuse and killing of dolphins in Japan and Denmark - this was instead serving as a metaphor.







Metaphor unravelled, it turned out my anxieties were aimed toward a family member. On reflection it seems to have been due to a relationship that was never able to form and adjust properly for many reasons. I started by looking at old photographs from her past...







... and figured I should process them the best way I know how!









So I tried taking the figures from these drawings and applying the painting techniques that worked well from my last body of work:







These all came together for my end of year show (as you can see in my last post). I feel I'm in a good position to move on to Middlesex and continue working with these ideas. Who knows where we will be at the end of 3rd year...