How Fire Works

I have often chosen to paint on found objects, particularly those with irregular surfaces. I enjoy the merging of object and painted image which slightly distorts the image. The use of the finely made vintage dinner plates here is a reference to a certain delicacy of design sensibility, a quality traditionally cited to justify the idea that humans are intrinsically superior and our dominion in the natural environment easily justified. We understand however that we are part of and dependent on the interconnectedness of nature and are starting to recognise that our role in those connected systems needn't be destructive as it so often has been historically. The painted flames signify the destructive effects of our exploitation of the natural world. The decorative style of the work contradicts the sadness of the work's message, a device I've borrowed from Japanese, Chinese and Indian painting where, I feel, the beauty with which even the most violent subject is rendered, heightens the painful content of the overall image.