It’s a Wallpaper World

The intention behind the project is to map the tension between the human habit of obfuscation and the 'brute reality' of social experience. That is, on the one hand, we all recognise the raw animal-like nature of society: the human qualities of say, cruelty or menace, greed or power. On the other hand, the human instinct is to obfuscate or 'beautify' these base qualities by misrepresenting them and thereby turn what is feared into what is valued. One might speculate that that may very well be the function of Art too? These paintings attempt to point up the duality of our ethical understanding of the world. Hence, the title: It’s A Wallpaper World is to say, It's a Knowingly False World.

I began working on this series in the autumn of 2004. Each painting is subtitled by way of further highlighting the particular subject matter. You will find that the pictures incorporate not only references to the human figure but also, toys and 1st Nation Canadian Art.

All paintings are 122x152cm, vinyl and metallic paint on paper.

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