Again I look at the painting. And again.
An act of trust takes place, that my body and hand know the way.
Each painting in Body Orogeny unfolds through a process of building and undoing. Using color, mark, and texture to explore the intersections of self and landscape, every piece functions as a site of internal transformation. A restructuring of memory and identity that parallels geological processes through deliberate building up and erasure of mark and colour.
Like orogeny, the formation of mountains under immense pressure, these paintings trace the dissolution of previous identities, exposing the changes and reconfigurations of the self.. My layered approach is not about constructing a fixed idea in advance of an image but rather creating a surface that holds sedimented traces of memory, myth, and place.
Through colours like yellow, flesh pink, and cerulean, I attempt to connect the human body to a broader landscape, anchoring individual experience within an expansive ecological and psychological context.
Looking at these paintings for me has required an active, sustained engagement. This “long looking” is a form of integral attention led by patience and openness, allowing new perspectives to emerge over time, and embodied knowledge to reveal itself.
Body Orogeny positions these works not as static objects but as evolving presences. As the viewer becomes part of the work’s unfolding process, individual and collective dimensions of memory and place emerge between layer, mark and shape. They serve as thresholds, prompting an engagement with both personal and collective identities within the landscape. In this way, the paintings engage with a broader psychogeography, positioning individual transformation within a shared ecology of place, where shifts in self resonate within the larger, interconnected world.
Structures fold inwards and old selves crumble. We can no longer locate ourselves, as inner mantles reconstruct.
What once may have been spectres can now become our next shape.