Origins Ghosts and Shadows

Exhibition in Atkins Gallery

"The Origins section is a reflection on some of the questions I had for the Biology, Physics and Chemistry departments about our evolution, mostly through the work of Charles Darwin, Charles Lyall and the Victorian natural historians and how these reflect upon how we live today"

"Origins was generated mostly through conversations with colleagues in various break times and lunch times in school."

"This is taken through to my experiences in Africa and the world as I found it there. The jaw dropping poverty and the exploitation by wealthier nations of African natural resources. I had to approach this through the use of metaphor cakes and the taming (the domestication) of nature and through this situation, perhaps even the extinction of what we recognise as the natural world."

"A Lexicon of Shadows is my ongoing reflection of the development of the History of Art through the exploration of light and more importantly shadows."

"I hope that it reflects my love of the Northern Renaissance; those misty mornings in Delft, that inspired Johannes Vermeer to create his wonderfully evocative paintings, Rembrandt Van Ryn to reveal form through his calculated light sources and contrast this with the brilliant light of the Italian Renaissance."

"The Ghosts of Industry is a qualified lament for the demise of certain industries within the town and surrounding area. I grew up surrounded by Victorian red brick factories that are now largely defunct due to economics. "

".It is also the celebration of the fact that I was the first generation of my family out of these factories; institutions that my parents attended at 14 straight out of school."