Can You Hear Me Now?

When painting this, I was preoccupied with ideas about the public veneer we display when facing a camera, and the rippling undercurrents beneath the surface.

My main reference point was Francis Bacon’s portraits of George Dyer – the rage and passion that emerges through the paint. I wanted to peel back to the emotions concealed by layers of politeness and respectability: the anger that sits alongside love, unsuccessfully buried; the hidden passion that nevertheless bleeds out. The proliferation of Zoom conversations has blurred the boundaries between public and private space, and private passions can be unexpectedly exposed.  

The surface tension of the paint and water is disturbed by movement and mediums. The canvas is pulled tight, everything is at the surface. Every layer of paint is visible at some point, nothing is successfully covered over. Deep coloured nuggets of paint rise to the surface, while whitewashes of fail to conceal anything. There is no distinction between background and foreground: this pair are enveloped and swallowed by their environment; their circumstances have created the emotional content.