Bodily & Botanical:

Reflecting on the biomorphic shapes evident in Abstract Expressionist works, I attempt to translate the inherent connection and assimilation between botanical material and bodily forms. Alluding to botanical impressions rather than directly depicting botany, the material itself takes control over the subject matter translated. This more liberating, instinctive method of working enables sensuality and tactility to take precedence.

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Eccentric Abstraction:

Much like a large oil pastel, working with oil bars enabled me to create looser, gestural strokes and renders on a larger, more freeing scale. Using oil bars to create characteristically feminine, ‘long slow voluptuous but also mechanical curves’ creates a visceral, indirectly erotic rendering of the Rehmannia flower. This process is not dissimilar to ‘Eccentric Abstraction’, whereby materiality is used to evoke meaning and feminine sensuous experience.

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​Audience Experience:

 Emulating soft, cyclical, biomorphic forms, these concave-convex smooth mounds ignite the senses. The completed and continuous curves of the Rehmannia flower, and the act of tearing paper stimulates a near-visceral, tactile identification and relationship with form. This provokes the part of the brain which, when activated by the eye, 'experiences the strongest physical sensations'.