ARTIST STATEMENT

Using digital art tools and techniques to express ideas previously restricted to the imagination, I explore iconic and ubiquitous and archetypal forms and processes to create experimental new works. I’m interested in monomyths, and abstractions of traditional stories, using Neo-Baroque aesthetics to see what is possible to do with decorative forms when their material limitations have been removed.

I’m intrigued about the way the brain is wired to respond to art. More specifically, I want to uncover how digital tools can elicit a neuroaesthetic response to optical illusion imagery. My aim is to create artwork that causes the eyes to see clearly but the brain to misunderstand, nonetheless bringing about a reaction of delight and wonder rather than confusion and aversion to something that might otherwise be deemed too abstract, too much or  “too soon”. I study the artistic intersection between physical response and intrigue with regard to motion, and play with the visceral reactions to attraction, mystery, joy and satisfaction.

I’m interested in exploring the sensorial triggers which create a sense of awe. 

Through my work, I’m gaining a clearer technical understanding of why some shapes and forms appear aesthetic, while others look ‘off’. This goes beyond the typical golden ratio and the bio-responses caused from attraction. Is there a Jungian collective unconscious understanding of a good shape or line? Where does it come from? What makes one curved shape more aesthetic than another? And, from a design perspective, what makes some shapes succeed in the free-market economy, while others do not.