I’m not sure I’ve ever known myself and I’m not sure I’ve found a place to belong. I come from two small towns in the north of Scotland and grew up somewhere in between. When I was young, small-town mentalities forced a façade of fear and second-guessing to form an impenetrable wall, separating me from exploring my identity. Eventually, I moved away to the city, but I felt then as if I were missing out on a life and a community that the rose-tinted lens of social media had conditioned me to believe was promised. And now, for some incomprehensible reason, I find myself to be homesick for an imagined past...
I’m somewhat of a hoarder (of objects, images, and memories) and my recent work has become an amalgamation of personal experience, online culture, and art history collaged together in paint. I draw mostly unrelated moments together and try to imagine narratives emerging. These narratives spiral into each other across large-scale oil paintings, smaller acrylic pieces, and artist book works. In the paintings, unknown boys from social media morph into companions and grow their own identities, landscapes from the place I call home become twisted and uncanny, and my identity becomes appropriated through self-design and imitation. Ultimately, I see my recent work as an attempt to start unravelling the mess I have created myself within.
Slain (by the Irises)
Try it Once. Try it Twice. (Sodomite)
Quiet Desperation in a Sad Gay World
Sissydom
The Uninvited Guest
Crystal Blue, in my head
Everything was beautiful... because I was with you...
