Between 2003 and 2008, I did not make any work.
Returning to the blank canvas after such a long hiatus, the brief to self was to create 50 paintings, each 100x100cm work charged to investigate ideas of authorship and identity, and the tyranny of style.
Avoiding the minefield relating to the slippage between eroticism and pornography in relationship to the figure, I decided to avoid the nude altogether….my leitmotif historically.
The plan was to make a series of hard edged, geometric abstractions, in tandem with a totally different figurative series where links referenced the body and interpersonal relationships metaphorically.
These two bodies of work interrogated the two polarities which are part of the personal push-me, pull-you dynamic at play in painting.
With time, these works led to other explorations in scale, colour and associations, finally returning to the eroticised figure laden with enormous socio-cultural implications.