The Search for Perfection

My work might broadly be described as ‘Art About Art’ - it is multi-layered in construction and in potential meaning. I make my artworks by importing pictorial content into two kinds of image manipulating software, the composition is then constructed, developed, and finessed digitally. I often utilize elements taken from classic 'Old Master' paintings, re-presenting them in new contexts and relationships. By fusing history with contemporary additions, I work with the iconic and the cultural, merging them to create new narratives. I quote from the art of the past so as to reinterpret a way of seeing and thinking that I associate with artists as disparate as Vermeer, Velasquez, Ingres, Manet, Duchamp and Richard Hamilton etc. My artworks are, in part, referential in their intent rather than simply appropriated or copied from masterworks. My imitation is a sincere form of flattery. In addition to explicit references, some may find humor in my alterations. By leaving out familiar elements or by adding new elements to known works, or reconfiguring components within them, much of my work is a visual commentary. Viewers often recognise 'familiar' elements in my re-imagined compositions. However, seeing them in unexpected and surprising compositions can lead to a reassessment of the original... and a 'smile in the mind' in witnessing the new.