How To Have a Good Time
Wentworth Galleries,
April 2025
And not in a patronising way. Sometimes, I don’t even know how to do it myself. I find it intriguing that my works come out the way they do, so bright, so happy, sometimes playful. It’s what I seek most in this life - naturally though, I am not always that way inclined. More of a deep thinker, a brooder, likely similar to many artists.
HOW TO HAVE A GOOD TIME feels like a journey of becoming more comfortable with authentic expression. I’m no longer interested in portraying certain ideas or themes. Like all of my works, upon reflection they present as a certain yearning. Though when painting them I am not even conscious of. All of the sudden, whether it be days or weeks later there’s a large scale, colour-filled canvas sitting in front of me. Often times, I have not much memory on how I got there in the first place.
These paintings don’t have a relationship with words, they’re a reflection of energy, of consciousness - and I think that’s an important message to note. How can I apply literal meaning with words, to a visual language? I can’t.
I’m not going to tell you how to feel about these works, or what to take away from them. That is up to you. What I can tell you is, when I reflect on them personally, these works seem to dance between a searching for playfulness and a revelation of energy, created from a very full, very real life. Same as the one you have. I hope you, as the viewer can sense that. It’s also my hope that these paintings can do two things: Firstly, evoke something in you. Anything (with luck, it will probably the thing that needs to be evoked) and secondly, represent a multitude of things; heavy things, great things, fun things, hard things, happy things and sad things. I suppose, what they are is art imitating life. Not the lives we see online, not an ‘ideal’, but the gritty, messy and very real life we are blessed to be on this earth for.
