HAPPINESS & SHAME

17 oil paintings on linen, 2024

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Meditation practices invite us to slip into the role of the observer, a space of impartial awareness of our sensations as they arise and pass. Following this process, I paint from observation. By going into a trance-like state of attunement, I observe the flux of physical sensations and emotional impulses and use them as a guide in my painting. This is at the root of my practice, from which I then allow the mind to synthesise this first-hand information into concepts, words, and ideas which I feed back into the paintings (as well as into their titles). My painting practice foregrounds intuition and gesture and strengthens my self-trust and clarity of my vision. I use my work as a tool for calibrating my own relationship with the world and as a conduit for personal transformation. My ultimate aim is to undo the incessant gaslighting we receive about our bodies, especially as women, to dislodge the received ideas of mistrust and scepticism of first-hand sensory experience of the world, and to replace them with a greater sense of autonomy, courage, and trust in our own bodies as a reliable site of deep knowing.

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-- DLG, September 2024