Painting is such a fluid practice. The experience of allowing the hand and the eye and then the imagination to follow the gesture until form appears and in the recognition of the form, a story evolves. The Swimming Lesson, was one such unfolding. Unlike many works, this one suggests a calmness, a containment in the way the figures are connected. Floating in a place of trust. The approach to the landscape is quite abstracted, a sea and sky that is atmospheric more than actual. The child's face is the only 'real' reference, and in her face we see an expression that suggests the mood of the painting. It is a fine line to juggle the 'abstraction' or expression of the form inclusive of a 'body'. De Kooning is a passing reference where gestural marks and the body are part of the painting. His woman are grotesque in a way that I turn away from, as I chose to include persons to act as a reference to what is essentially 'good' in us.
My bodies are 'flat' yet tonal. The tones evokes light, more than attempting to place bodies in space. I do not shy away from the fact that I am placing my images on a two dimensional plane. They are 'comfortable' in this space and I don't pretend otherwise. There is no depth in a canvas, only colour creates that illusion. My bodies are not tied to the colour of our skins. I am not interested in attaching labels to the people who occupy the stories I paint. I speak to the stories that pertains to all human kind. Regardless of the economic barriers that creates so much tension and inequality in this world, our internal lives, the one's no one else sees yet are universal. The stories of who we are when no one is looking.