Architectural spaces, computer games and photographic realism all play a part in my paintings. The images I make are heavily informed by the aesthetics of computer games, comics, sci-fi novels and, sometimes, by plain old real places.
Some of my works are directly photo-realist, they are paintings which obsess on the seduction of the painted surface. They represent images of urban landscapes and corridors, places which sometimes seem bleak and dystopian, yet remain spatially interesting and intriguing with an odd kind of beauty.
Other works are painted reproductions from various computer games – I explore these environments with the eye of a photographer, ‘moving’ around the levels ignoring the intended flow of the game, instead looking for a good virtual photo opportunity. I use these snatched stills as a basis for an oil painting on canvas – finding some attraction in the reduction of hi-tech virtual space to the archaic realm of painting.
A final branch of my work is somewhat more complex. Each painting is derived from either a real model made from cardboard, or a 3-D collage constructed inside a computer rendering programme. The collages – or models – are built from small sections of hand painted paper, which I scan into the application. The models are idealised spaces that I have built up from drawings, sometimes based on real places and sometimes fictional. Initially I populated these models with characters, playing with scenarios from a fictional life, but increasingly I leave them empt, preferring the spaces to speak for themselves. These environments are then painted in photo-realistic style.
I believe that ultimately I’m seeking to picture something expansive, something tangible, conjured up from memories or sketches, or caught in experience. Motives differ from one painting to the next. One work may attempt to depict a fictional environment, from an imagined world, a place I wish I could visit, while another simply shows a long corridor from within a building I used to work in. The previous sentences may lead you to believe my work depicts wildly fictional spaces – but for some reason the paintings always stay close to the real, on the border of fiction. I often think of them as ‘levels’ from a non-existent game.
