‘I am neither of the East nor of the West, no boundaries exist within my breast.’ ~ Rumi

I am drawn to the landscapes of ancient Chinese painters, such as Ma Yuan and Guo Xi, through to modernist painters from Klimt and Van Gogh to Kandinsky and the Abstract Expressionists, but not much after that era really speaks to me. In recent years, I have been exploring writing and photography and thinking of ways to synthesise this with painting which considers mythical symbolism in nature. One artist who continues to intrigue me is Robert Rauschenberg: I feel his work represents the cusp of a significant creative evolution – from individualistic, existential struggles synonymous with modernism (notable with artists like Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock) to the vapidity of an impersonal and homogenised reproduction epitomised by Andy Warhol. I have read criticisms rubbishing contemporary art as ‘meaningless juxtaposition’ and maybe there’s something to that: we live in a fragmented world saturated with media images to the point of content fatigue (Pop Art on steroids). I wonder whether society’s automated malaise has all but removed the human in art, or if we are on a cusp which may give rise to an alternative creative development.