My current work incorporates textile patterns and photographs of figures in patterned clothing. The painted and collaged patterns act as a form of camouflage to hide and protect the body. These detailed patterned spaces are often psychologically charged, dealing with issues of control, power, entrapment and escape.
Turkish Delight is a new series of elaborate mixed media works that portray women dressed in Turkish Kaftans that are visually obliterated by their textile patterns. Traditionally, only Ottoman Sultans wore these elaborate robes; some were so precious that they were given as rewards to important generals or dignitaries. I am interested in addressing the status and gender of dress from this culture from a modern day western perspective, where a long dress is never clothing that an important male figure would embrace. The Turkish Delight paintings give power to the women dressed in the Imperial Kaftans, but as the title also suggests the woman are objectified as candy or as eye candy – a role that women confront everyday in almost all cultures.
In a more humorous series of work titled Flimflams, I use an eclectic range of rubber-stamp images that interact with the painted patterns. These pieces move further into the realm of fantasy and absurdity than with other works. The stamps are carefully selected to create a series of paintings that are unrestrained by pictorial reality, but structured around the patterns, forming ambiguous narratives and suggesting a new set of cultural associations for the chosen patterns.
