Artist's Statement:

In her curatorial prompt, the curator Maria Marais asks, "When life is interrupted—after the boundaries that hold us break down, after we cease displacing the air around us, after our final breath leaves us—what becomes of us?" This disorientation that follows such a traumatic transition reshapes the way one's perspectives are projected and radically shakes one's understanding of one's place in the world. Wagoner’s poem concludes with “The forest knows / Where you are. You must let it find you," suggesting an alternative understanding of time and place. In the painting titled after his poem, You must let it find you (2026), a figure patiently rests in an unsettled space. The painting includes, amongst others, images of a forest saturated with eyes in various states of awareness.

In everyday language we understand 'eyes' to suggest dimensions of sight – the windows of the soul, wisdom, reflection or emotion. This painting presents eyes cast in shadow, the mediators between the world within us and the world without. Partly informed by a belief in ancestral presence and an understanding of the continuity of matter, the work reflects an immersive materiality. Wherever you are is called 'Here' (2026), evokes dust or particles as well as energy in all matter.

You must let it find you (2026) was first exhibited at White River Gallery, reimagining death, and was then reworked to emphasise a surreal sense of fleshiness for the exhibition Eve-song at UP 2-1 Gallery. I interpreted the concept of “Eve” as a holding space, generated by multiple cultures to contain ideas around being ‘female’ as a reincarnational force and as a relational being. I am critical of the patriarchal values of society and the disasters it leaves in its destructive trajectory. In the painting The Tortoise will guide you (2026) it is the bones of a tortoise as a symbol of the wisdom of slowing down that are placed as a teacher. Abstract dispersion of paint is placed next to the solidity of impasto paint to further evoke the relationship between ephemeral and material, or concrete.

My artworks on “What Remains” are slivers of a bigger story. Each image shows a measure of disruption to suggest the gradual wear of time in blemishes and stains. 
The organic worlds of Lost Faces, as well as George and the Seductive Dragon, challenge our ability to see beyond our time and to appreciate myths and stories of other worlds: the crowd in Lost Faces, inspired by faded tapestry, recalls the marketplace long forgotten, whilst the legend of St George speaks of the struggle between good and evil but continues to be of relevance in contemporary narratives where the hero is most often tasked to ‘slay the dragon’. Thus, we carry remnants of history with us in contemporary times, even though we have limited insight into the context and seldom grasp its roots.

The reconstruction through collage or fragments of leftover paint suggests that the material carries a clue to the stories they tell, even as they fall apart. “What Remains” recalls loss and disruption and suggests a narrative of unfolding events – a relationship, followed by an incident that left all with a memory that stays. If we were to write these tales down, the shape of their letters would carry its own coded messages. The objects I choose to draw or paint acknowledge that the stories we tell can only be offered as partial information. As fragments, the works melancholically communicate ideas about lost ties with people and places.