This gallery features work that is underway in the studio. This is just a visual record of emerging themes and activities. I am currently looking at two strands.
Classical purity and 'whiteness' and gender identity.

I am investigating these themes through a series of paintings that make reference to older forms of representation, classical relief carvings or casts and through 'fig leaf' details taken from Northern European paintings (Durer, Cranach etc) of Adam and Eve. I am always very interested in the way contemporary debates sometimes invoke or challenge the past.

I have now developed a better understanding of how I want the 'Fig Leaf' paintings to work. I want the bodies to loose some of the gender clues, so I have painted them with a slight out of focus effect. The leaf coverings have been painted in a more hard edged manner, bringing them forward to the viewer. I have also realised that these paintings are about shame (Adam and Eve's nakedness) and they are using apple tree branches to hide themselves rather than having 'fig leaves' imposed on them.