Walking in his shoes / Ray-banned

When it happens in three marks, it is grace" Marlene Dumas

The process of my painting in many respects parallels that of Cy Twombly as described by visual  artist Tacita Dean as an "advancing and retreating" - where "rubbing out is a process of adding as well as subtracting" and there  is a "retraction that leaves a trace".  (Dean 2008}

I acknowledge my inherent cultural constructs and allow a quotidian stream of consciousness, interwoven with throw away phrases and personal responses to media and domestic events to surface. It is through this that I attempt to capture the liminal, to re-connect with our primordial narratives, and to delve into the deeply private space, where the spiritual and the profane merge to reveal that which is the human experience.

The work(s) submitted are from a series called Not Written in Stone, where I used the implications of the secrecy bill, non-transparency and the culture of the statement and subjectivity, as a starting point. From this the submitted works emerged. The use of limestone - a tribute to Mandela; is a comment on the pain and discomfort and damage that he and the other political prisoners endured on Robben Island when forced to break limestone rocks in the quarry without protective eye gear.

The duality of life as a constant reminder of our humanity drives me to paint. It is more than the quest for a place of lucidity; it is also an attempt to key in to the place where the painting and the process become an agent of transcendence and to thus hopefully arrive at a place which evokes meaning far beyond the reach of words.