‘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 Turner and 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, writing and photography have become the main focus of my work. To be honest, I mostly look at painting as a significant phase that led to writing and working with lens-based media. I’m particularly drawn to the DIY aspect of photography – its production and post-production techniques have come to mirror the self-sufficient method by which a lot of the music I listen to is produced. Nevertheless, embodiment is a theme that pervades my work and there’s a physicality to painting I may return to. 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 uniform 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 consumerist spectacle to the point of content fatigue (Pop Art on steroids). Art without the human is a lame tribute act for cultural homogenisation; I wonder whether today’s digital colonialism has all but destroyed any hope of authenticity or if we are on a cusp which may give rise to an alternative creative development.