Paravents
Paravents is an ongoing body of work. This page presents a selection.
A folding screen creates a boundary between what we see and what we suppose is there. By concealing something, it prompts us to imagine what lies behind it. As an interior designer, I was drawn to its ability to shape space; as a painter, I am also interested in the expectation this boundary creates.
I explore the same question in painting: how do we make a sign for something we cannot show? This is why I turn to the visual language of icons. Figures become simpler; gestures and the relationships between them take on greater weight.
The circle can evoke wholeness. Emptiness leaves room for uncertainty. Paint is what we, as human beings, can still put there.
Where does the boundary lie between the sacred and the everyday? Why do we assume there is something beyond a boundary?
If I remove the screen, does anything remain behind it?
Majik
2022
Oil and mixed media on canvas, beeswax
3 panels joined by hinges
Single sided
Panels 3 x 70 x 150 cm, 2,5cm thick
MAJIK is not magic. It imagines a lost possibility of co-creation: a state in which intention,
energy and matter were still directly connected.
The signs and gestures of sacred art, including those preserved in religious icons, may carry the memory of this older knowledge. The gesture remained. Its meaning faded into obscurity.