I am an artist, focused on paintings and recently, textile sculptures. As a painter I have gone through different interests in subjects; however, the themes of intimacy, domestication, utopias and the undying and universal pursuit of something to love keep recurring. The series that I have been busy with for the past two years shows imaginary dogs as the protagonists that guide you through a nonsensical grassy world where traces of the mundane appear and dissolve.
Neoteny is the retention of juvenile features in adult animals. It’s especially noticeable in domesticated animals, and although rarely unprovoked, it is an unavoidable effect in the process of breeding for companionship. It’s exhibited in bigger eyes on bigger heads, floppier ears, a naive temperament and much more. Some of these unwanted physical traits begin to resemble distinctly human features, a slow process of involuntarily mirroring our fragile image. As I like to misunderstand Mary Shelley, in our loneliest hours we create monsters.
Bending living beings to fit in a world they were never part of creating has become part of the modern mundane. Forms shaped by desire, expectation, and projection. Rejected by animals and unaware of their creator’s hand. My aim is to tackle these subjects with empathy and understanding. The textile sculptures allowed me to better explore the shapes of the animals and relieved my paintings of the descriptions, allowing me to focus on atmosphere, colour and storytelling.
In my work I blur the lines between my imagination and that of the dogs. Bright colours and unresolved twisted shapes show you possible memories and hopeful and fearful futures of the animal. I imagine what the world feels like when you don’t know the difference between architecture and landscape.
