In the realm of representational painting, how can one communicate specific emotional meaning, one that surpasses the constructs of language?
Searching for emotional meaning relates to portraying what is between or before language: by choosing images that I cannot visually understand, images that evoke confusion and disorientation, I strive for atmosphere over volume and affect over description.
The filmic, which Barthes defines as the third meaning, one that lies between language and metalanguage, is epitomised by a clipped fragment that is independent yet inextricable from the whole work, relinquished of time and context: the film still. The nature of the filmic is reminiscent of that which plagues the description of the most extreme human emotions linguistically.
As a result of my attraction to this ineffable third meaning, I select and print film stills. The process of printing, especially with its irregularities and dysfunctions, creates a new subject: a simulacrum. The occasional stains, bends, and tears accumulated through time, in lieu of being imperfections, act as subtle signifiers of an additional layer of meaning, simultaneously obscuring the original and re-establishing temporality to the still.
Rather than attempting to represent the source from which the copy derives, my interest lies in working with the image-as-object. This method of printing a composition of images, much in the same vein of a traditional still life, is a part of my process that functions as a structured routine that serves to relieve me of agency while painting. Another aspect that falls within this order is the task of making the paint from powdered pigments, remaining fairly true to the printed colour palette. Creating this controlled environment allows for the freedom of consciousness to play only when comes time to attend to the application of paint itself.
