Edge of Trigger

In the Singapore exhibition traditional 'Still Life' painting embraces the terms  ‘still and ‘life’ as natural opposites. French still life painting is called 'Nature Morte'', another term of opposition, Dead Nature.

My paintings explore these tensions. The subjects are rigid, poised, on the edge. Flowers stand impossibly straight, shells balanced on their tips. The initial references are to traditional Dutch Golden Age paintings which started the fascination with arranged objects. 

My work tries to find a psychological drama through the symbolism and balance of the elements. 

The precarious nature of the objects and the formal arrangements have their rigidity contrasted with small electric flashes of colourful impasto - these could represent a passing butterfly or a firefly in motion. 

Even more pointedly they are mini spectrums of light particles dissolving the objects and atmosphere. Photons and primary particles are the reality at a sub atomic level. The seeming solidity of a 'still life' is an illusion, firstly as a two-dimensional painting and secondly in that the objects themselves are in constant motion at an atomic scale. 

Nothing is what it seems to be.