Quite Contrary

"My work portrays women from the perspective of a female artist. I incorporate aspects of the established artistic canon into my portraits through poses and subject matter. In this case, I wanted to add colour to Whistler’s Symphony in White, No. 3.

I used modern props and costuming juxtaposed with hazy, dream-like backgrounds. They are situated in a space that is in flux; it is not a solid world. The artistic tradition comes into tension with my own womanhood and female gaze.

I am concerned with photography in relation to painting. Photography pervades our lives and we are bombarded with the images it produces on a daily basis. The strength of painting is its difference to the photographic image. In a painting the human touch is made visible in the movement of the paint. We see the time and labour consolidated within the work. Working from photography has forced me to negotiate the conflict between necessary detail and the world of imagination and implication.

There is always a feeling of urgency while I am painting. There is a real desire to capture the moment before it disappears and to say through my art, this is us, this is the moment, and this is how we are now."