Overheard Conversation in My Practice

Written word is a predominant element of my practice, often using overheard conversation and phrases amongst personal confession and statements to create a balance between the everyday and the confessional. and obscurity in authorship or origin of the text. Using other peoples words as well as my own adds obscurity of authorship and origin of the text but is also a defensive mechanism to the personal nature my practice. The process of writing others words also triggers a personal response that leads to writing; this merges outer experience and inner experience. The result, a mixture of the every day/mundane conversation or thought with personal and poetic writing.

I see these works as self-portraits even though the human figure is not involved and the words are often stollen. This is because I, sometimes consciously sometimes subconsciously, choose words, phrases or conversations that resonate with me.

Where it Began:

During my undergraduate degree in 2nd year (2016) I began recording other peoples conversations and creating blind portraiture drawings as a way to stay connected with my environment whilst also withdrawing. When overwhelmed by my environment or when overthinking, it is a way to distract from these emotions, process on them and reflect. Below are examples of previous work:

I am thinking about getting back into blind drawings. The use of image disperses the text well, drawing attention to some points and less others, rather than solely using text and creating a piece with no focal point. Patterns help me to do this now, using another visual level to complicate the appearance and create layers.