This exhibition comprises a series of oil paintings depicting a range of landscape, still-life motifs.
My practice has always drawn from a wide historical range in the traditions of oil painting; assimilating classical, modern and contemporary sensibilities into my practice.
Through the conscious use of muted colours, adjusted tones and shades, loose paint application with visible strokes of varying qualities, I hope to lay bare the traces of decision making within the process, and distill an aesthetic appreciation for the craft of painting itself.
The title of the exhibition "'Aida_間＿'" alludes to an aesthetic notion of 'Ma' (onyomi for 間 'aida': the alternative reading of the same kanji character.) A term in Japanese which refers to the spaces in between things, a negative space, or a pause.
The reductive compositions with clear figure ground relations are reinforced through the use of negative spacesー間ーwhich link together landscape and still-life genres with abstract formalism. In the series of paintings, the connections between the seemingly arbitrary selection of pedestrian subject matters are omittedー間ーleaving interpretation and meaning in the negative space in between.
