My overall practice is driven by my fascination with the illusory qualities inherent in cinema and early animation. Imagining myself as a cinema pioneer I explore the interplay between the moving and the still, creating works that sit between the pre-cinematic and the digital.
By discovering low-fi ways to add movement to single images and commonplace objects/materials, my intent is to ignite an element of wonder at the illusion of cinema, giving the everyday enough of a twist to allow the imagination to run free.
We live in a society where the material is being replaced by the immaterial. This has drawn me to use tangible everyday materials in my work that I juxtapose with the relative immateriality of video. Behind the scenes of my videos there are various hand-crafted mechanisms that drive them that are hand-operated/cranked.
In recent years I have made kinetic works for audience interaction that have been shown internationally including Turner Contemporary, Margate, U.K, 1shanthiroad, Bangalore, India and Basement 6, Shanghai, China.
'Clown White, Minstrel Black', 2008, shot on 35mm film.
These works reference the make up and fright wig of both the modern day white faced clown and its strikingly similar predecessor the black faced minstrel, as well as the relationship between a photographic negative and it's ensuing image.
Ten portrait pairs make up the series.
Each individual sat for two portraits. In the first photograph their face was painted white with black paint exaggerating the lips and eyes and in the second the make up is tonally reversed.
