from the artist (Jan 2013)
"Graveside Paintings


I chose to paint from anonymous found snapshots of gravesides as i had gathered a number of them and was curious to know how the feel of my work would change if i took on the relationship between painting, photography and death in a more direct way.
It seemed odd to me to take photographs of gravesides and i wanted to investigate why these images intrigued me so much. I was drawn to the idea of a lack of central figure/people, and how the monochrome nature of the paintings would enhance my works focus on the push pull between figuration and abstraction, and that these works would have a “slower burn” than lots of my other work in terms of when the image comes into focus.

These paintings are an attempt to investigate the relationship between photography and death in a direct way - Roland Barthes quotes “he is dead and he is going to die” referring to a photograph inmate about to be hanged relates here, in that a photograph holds the subject in suspension, forever alive, and yet as a viewer with hindsight we know that that subject has since died. With other work my concern was the idea that the painting process could somehow resurrect forgotten subjects, such as Golem II, etc, whilst also dealing with the dead matter of paint becoming alive at the same time, reinvigorating these “dead” photos with life and movement whilst at the same time acknowledging their own failure as effective “memory objects”. With these graveside paintings/photos this “he is dead and he is going to die” becomes a statement about the photograph itself, this failure of painting /photograph to accurately re-invoke the person is at the forefront here with the grave/headstone is an symbol for the inability of the photograph. The headstone will probably outlast the photograph, whereas the photographs i have collected outlast their subjects. Both the photograph and the headstone are emotive triggers/points of contact for those out of reach, yet they are equally flawed, as is a painting.

These images are not as explicitly figurative, but are a kind of portrait at the same time. The usual central figure is replaced by a monument to someone, leaving the feeling of a presence twice removed. perhaps this sense of absence highlights our human need to be remembered and fear of being forgotten. Perhaps these graveside photos are also symbols for something unreachable, in a more direct way than the paintings of photos of people etc.
The flowers at the graveside are an attempt to give life to the grave and stoicism of the monument, echoing the the relation of the paint to the photograph, with the paint attempting to resscuscitate these dead images. Both are acts of remembrance, with my relationship to the subject being distanced i only know the image intimately,and not the person, whereas the people laying the flowers knew the person buried intimately, and are distanced or have a least parted with the photographic record of the grave.
people are never still except here, under this monument when they are laid to rest, "