An Architectural Imaginary

Abstract

My work is a vehicle to investigate the perceptual intimacy I find within public spaces. Blending contemporary with classical approaches to art and spatial relationships, I use the idea of perception as a function of human experience, place and personal memory. I explore compositional, personal and experiential connections while creating an invitation for the viewer to do the same. A paradox exists within the material realm. I identify with who I am through the spaces I inhabit and feel as if my body can extend its presence into the built environment. My artwork becomes a lens that reveals the temporality of my experiences. Using architecture and abstraction as a philosophical approach in my paintings, architecture becomes both a visual bridge between inside and out, and a passageway of self-reflection. Abstraction is a way to move through a space. My work explores how art can become a space by its interaction with the environment and how the space can become the artwork. I conceptualize ideas relating to place identity and my lived experiences within the built environment. I view the world in a particular way because of the context in which I have experienced it: the architecture, spatial politics, personal relationships, public and private intimate spaces. I am interested in the interpretation of and the interactions with the spaces that surround me: what memories or feelings do these spaces spark and what sort of energy do they project? Likewise, I am interested in the roles that art plays in culture, architecture, and the site-specificity of spatial relationships that are formed by these interactions. My work explores whether, through art, we can share our individual perceptions, whether someone can access and experience a new view of the world through my artwork and how I can create a new space via my art.