Wish-Landscapes
Bartley Nees Gallery, Wellington
13 Sep - 9 Oct 2005

The title of my latest series of paintings refers to a world of virtual perfection surfacing in another place as outlined in Ernst Bloch's book, The Utopian Function of Art and Literature, in which wish-landscapes are conceived by the imagination of the artist to measure the distance we have to go to achieve happiness. An anticipatory illusion where interior and perspective merge and permeate themselves with a dissolved other world, these works trace the utopian and point towards a promised land yet to find its appropriate form.

Through a symbiotic process my new works emulate natural land formations where paintings are dipped and suspended above one another allowing paint to drip and accumulate in peaks and troughs as a means to determine its outward form. Numerous experiments with paint and surface have manifested my wish-landscapes in various ways: through works that balloon and bubble outwards on the verge of volcanic eruption, through spiky stalactite-like tendrils that curl over to gravities will, or through pools and puddles of paint that are built up from successive colourful layers.

Like fantastical topographical landforms these wish-landscapes are glimpses into the other place revealing a new horizon at a distance concentrated within a frame.