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Artist Statement

Gafrique Om dat de werelt is soe ongetru
Daer om gha ic in den ru1

Because the world is so beguiled
Therefore I go into the wild.

Because the world is so untrue,
Therefore I go into solitude.

Because the world is so defiled,
Therefore I go into the wild.

I work from archival and contemporary film sources to create electronic paintings of significant social and political events, the tragedies, histories and sometime comedies of the 20th and 21st-centuries.

The work employs the compositional techniques of history paintings or "story painting" using manipulated details2 of people, architecture and landscapes, meticulously selected from film and video stills, photographs, crime scene documents, maps and street views to create the final tableaux, striving for historical accuracy while taking poetic license with time and perspective. The paintings are done entirely by "hand" and do make use of artifical intelligence.

These mise-en-scènes are composed from the fragmented moments of events2 captured on film and are aided by historical accounts, literature, forensic documentation, and contemporary street views. The visual narratives are historically accurate while taking poetic license with time and perspective. The paintings are done entirely by "hand" and do not make use of artifical intelligence.

I sample as many contemporaneous sources as relevant to the composition and strive for historical accuracy, taking poetic license in the drama of the moments chosen to depict these stories.

The work is indebted to the intrepid documentarians who recorded these events for posterity.

N.B. Measurements indicate maximum print dimensions but are variable.

1 Flemish inscription from The Misanthrope, Pieter Bruegel the Elder. "Ru" in Middle Dutch refers to a place of seclusion or solitude.
2 Usually several hundred fragments but as little as three and upward of a thousand.

Exhibitions & Publications