I have always tried to maintain a pure commitment to contemporary art practice. I’ve rarely looked for a safe place to rest. My art generally runs parallel to my life; I learn from my art and apply a few of these insights to my life, and vice versa. When I sense that I’m becoming too comfortable in what I’m doing, I will consciously move on to something new.
Challenges in my personal life keep me on my toes and help me to extend myself more as an artist. This is how my work is in a constant state of evolution. I see this evolution of my consciousness as an alchemical one, which is also true of my work, in a more literal sense.
The initial alchemy of a man-made object has been redefined by nature’s elements before it winds its way to the shore and before I redefine it again. The vision for my environmental work began with a deep curiosity with evolution and transformation. The link with this curiosity with transformation came with the direct experience of the fire in my studio in the early nineteen eighties. Eventually this curiosity resulted in a critical first step in my art practice – transporting these plastics to my studio. Then came the processing, sorting and assembling of them.
A vital alchemical transformation takes place as intuition and personal aesthetic judgment are applied to rework the plastics into artworks, where the objects truly began to speak. And the final alchemy is in the eyes of the beholder, as they process the work and render their own thoughts, feelings, reactions and hopefully experience perceptual shifts. While my art practice changes, and evolves, my underlying commitment, as an artist has not ever wavered. I’ve been motivated by a professional duty to be aware of and express current social, spiritual and environmental concerns through my art practice.
With the information and insights gained from this, you can now confidently stand on the threshold of becoming visible as an artist, developing your capacity for a successful rewarding professional career.
