"I was thinking about portraiture and power and wanted to paint something in response to that. Therew as something about the paintings title, and the paleness of Napoleon that made me think of toilet paper. Rendering him as stacked loo rolls is a reflection of the absurdity of official portraits, I worked from a model I set up in my studio: I had to buy cheap toilet paper to get the right tactile quality, and I made the turds from plasticine. The muted tones relate to the density of materiality of the paint itself , which looks slightly digested as if it has run through some sort of system. I want the paint to carry the same kind of messages as the image."
Napoleon On Elba 2008
Oil on canvas
100 x 100 cm
Oil on canvas
100 x 100 cm
"I try to create strange juxtapositions in my work, to build a kind of contradiction in pictures. Head with bottles is about having a hangover. I don't drink but on the odd occasion I do it goes straight to my head, so here I've painted alcohol being poured directly into someones brain. The colourful strands are the hair, but also the contents of the bottles and brain leaking out.. They look like fingers running along the bottom of the canvas. I like these because they introduce a strange possibility of movement. All of my works create a series of conflicting or paradoxical expectations."
Head With Bottles 2008
Oil on canvas, 76 x 61 cm
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