On Myth, Material, and the Act of Beginning
On Myth, Material, and the Architecture of Beginning
My practice is grounded in the belief that beginnings carry their own architecture. Each work emerges from a threshold state where myth, material, and instinct converge into a singular force that compels form into being. I work at points of rupture, where the artwork moves beyond image and becomes an encounter shaped by light, texture, and emotional resonance.
Myth sits at the centre of this process. The Romulus story continues to influence the way I approach painting and spatial composition. It’s the mythic moment before the drama of establishing an empire that interests me. The irreversible act of drawing the first line. The initial marking of the moment a world is drawn open. This clarity of beginning, the inherent intelligence that protects it, and in the instinct that shapes it.
The figure of the She Wolf in the Romulus myth becomes a method. She guards the beginning before it has language. I recognise this impulse in my own work, particularly in the early stages of a painting, where form remains fragile and intuitive. My role is to hold space for that process until the work reveals its structure.
Material is the primary language of my practice. I work with dense, textured surfaces and extreme material extrusions that push beyond the flatness of the picture plane. Light becomes an active collaborator. The works shift according to hour, architecture, and viewer. Surfaces hold luminosity and shadow simultaneously, generating a quiet tectonic movement. I am interested in this temporal instability, in the way a work continues to behave long after it leaves the studio.
Spatial composition extends this logic. The gallery environment is not separate from the work. It operates as a living canvas that evolves through exhibitions, conversations, and the cumulative presence of artists and viewers. Romulus Folio at The Gladstone has become an architectural extension of my practice, a site where material, myth, and community converge. It allows for an expanded form of exhibition making that treats space not as backdrop but as collaborator.
My commitment is to the transformative potential of art. I am interested in how material intelligence can generate states of presence, how mythic frameworks can shift perception, and how space can act as an active participant in the work. I see art as a living system that shapes the environments and communities around it.
The works I create continue to explore thresholds where matter becomes event, where myth becomes method, and where painting becomes spatial encounter. This ongoing body of work draws from origin stories to articulate new contemporary forms. It is guided by the belief that beginnings are not moments of simplicity, but moments of concentrated potential. They are sites where new worlds are made possible.