Untitled

Procreate collage - “passage”

Watched Kingdom of Heaven recently and loved it, great film

Quick procreate collage - conflict series

This painting (Currently on display at Port Independent in Sunderland, UK) is a part of my Growth series, an overarching project theme tracking my own growth as a person and as a creative and ideas related to this.

For this painting I was looking at my experiences of tension, expectations, and personal insecurities surrounding the idea of masculinity in my youth and leading into the present day. How does the tortured artist trope reflect the tortured masculine image espoused by the manosphere and figures within it? How does the constant overwhelming consumption of images online skew and degrade our understanding of the self as men?

Is the figure sad? focused? confident? (maybe he's mewing) this is intentionally obscured/thrown into question in my depiction of the character contained in the piece. I use the clenched fist as a symbol of the resentment, insecurity, and rage I felt as a child, as well as a symbol of my ever-present struggle with the image of the "tortured artist" and its role within my life and practise.

Poem in relation to piece:

Windows of Sight Series - digital collage and colour Gradient made from my sketchbook drawings, a train ticket, and a digitally edited photo from a newspaper clipping about Palestine/Israel - I was thinking about how removed we are from the reality of these global events in the west and our tendency to build an understanding of reality based on the images, words, theories, and media surrounding them rather than on an actual experience of them whether consciously or otherwise.

Procreate collage - composition inspired by the ways in which we consume images, media, and realities in contemporary society - HUD/heads up displays, screens, digital platforms, war, violence, layers of removal, abstracts, digital degradations, targets, simulacrum, hyperrealities, (more)