I describe my picture making process as improvisational. In starting a composition, I am drawn to subject matter of an unexceptional kind. By that I mean something without specific reference to high profile events, personalities or objects in the public consciousness. This initial paring of subject matter gives me some essential freedom from the primeval need to inform and to reference the times in which I am living. This also allows my mark-making to evolve fugitively from the objects I paint, while also avoiding hierarchical assertions – where by implication or otherwise, I may be positing the idea that one subject matter is more worthy of attention than another.
Of course, there are many artists who have either sporadically or exclusively sourced their imagery from more conspicuous pools of material, which I would distinguish as the projectional mode of representation. Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper 1498, Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain 1917, Pablo Picasso’s Guernica 1937, Jasper John’s Flag 1955, Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Diptych 1962, Jeff Koons’s Michael Jackson and Bubbles 1988 and even paintings inspired by other paintings, such as Picasso’s Le Déjeuner Sur L’herbe 1960 (after Edouard Manet), offer some diverse examples where public awareness of the represented object or event, operates as a key anchor for the interpretation of the work.