RMB LATITUDES ART FAIR, 2025, Shepstone Gardens - SLIGHTLY OUT OF FOCUS

RMB LATITUDES ART FAIR, 2025, Shepstone Gardens - SLIGHTLY OUT OF FOCUS

In this exhibition I return to still life, an enduring interest. Most of the objects depicted are either my own or those displayed in a friend’s house, photographed and archived over many years. While at first glance evocative of the phenomenon of the cabinet of curiosities, the paintings invite reflection beyond their deceptive simplicity, to conversations that might be opened up by the objects in each painting and the paintings in relation to each other. The objects bear mute witness to their surroundings, remote from that which falls outside their confined spaces.

The paintings make visible the central role that the camera’s mediation plays in my process. They are emphatically photographic in the way in which they have been painted: in the flattening of shadows and light; depth and shallowness of field; the blur effected by the camera; and the contrast between vibrant colour and monochrome grey, the latter a reference to my work based on old black and white photographs and film stills. Photography sets the subject matter at a double remove, adding to the haunting and melancholy stillness that underlies the apparent chaotic compositions. In a sense every still life is a memento mori – a reminder of the fragility and transience of existence, of the immutable and silent presence of objects.