In my current series of work ‘culture clash’, I use eclectic found imagery, which is both beautiful and yet has some element of vulnerability. The emphasis is to use found imagery from diverse sources; from both fiction and reality. I often work from a screen still I make from a film, and also use contemporary photography of models, cult icons and people in war-torn states.
By finding elements of beauty in an image that stems from fiction and reality, I hope to find some common language of survival and strength. Also by the ambiguous nature of found imagery, it becomes unclear who is in the portrait, as the materiality of the painting process becomes ever more important than the original source. The commonalities of the work is often the use of women and children, finding beauty in a image of a contemporary model is fairly obvious, extracting beauty from images that originate from a horror film is more of a challenge.
The paradox of the imagery is further explored in the fabric flags I use. Constructing handmade flags, making a hybrid of British/ American/ Iraqi/ Palestinian flags, to create a new emblem is somewhat a comment on the current international climate. It is perhaps an optimistic look at what the international community has the possibility to become.
The look of the flags is fairly raw, deliberately creating an aesthetic that echoes a ‘mad max’ post apocalyptic mishmash of found materials. Almost pirate-like these flags are created with both vintage flags, vintage denim and embroidered linens to create a new canvas. The process involves making the flags (or finding a suitable vintage fabric flag), dyeing the fabric black, and then bleaching the image on with a sponge. The image is painted free-hand and often re-bleached many times to create a lighter image, highlighted with discharge medium to produce even more contrast. After each bleaching the material is washed to remove the chemicals and often re-sewn and patched to restore the flag and complete the image.
