This website is a compilation of the insights into my art practice. An aesthetic that has been the focus of my attention for over twenty years. Over this period I’ve gone through a series of developmental stages that have lead to a distinctive visual language and body of work. I hope this explanation will prompt further discussion into the understanding and validity of those insights.

What started out as an investigation to find an authentic aesthetic manifestation of our natural world, particularly the way we observe it, has materialised into something more concrete. I call this aesthetic Membrane Art — a practice of allowing the surface geometry to play a part in creating distinctive expression and unfolding events.

From curvature to flat

The initial proposition was to fold, or undulate, a loose canvas (take it off the frame) and paint on it – then compress the depth by stretching the canvas back onto the frame (flat picture plane). The undulating membrane would provide a re-enactment of nature (containing multidimensional values). Something akin to the geology over glacial time frames that has determined configurations of landscape. The flat plane generates the human visual experience, a visual metaphor for how we perceive.

Biodiversity series: MA Sweet sixteen

However, before I could properly exercise this aesthetic thought, I needed a better understanding of how gravity plays its part in our natural world. So I let gravity do the work, by allowing paint to flow over the canvas landscapes (undulating hills and valleys) in such a way that it all became a working part of the imagination, and for events to form and accumulate within the space it occupied over a given length of time. Then by unfolding, and recognising what happened, it became an extension of my cognitive ability to understand the geometric conditions and the state of materials that allowed such things to occur.

Transforming the geometrics

The discovery of this working practice showed me that I could transform the geometry of the canvas in its unstretched form to the stretched. Furthermore, I realised that I didn’t just have to solely use the effects of gravity. With varying degrees of manipulation I could apply marks that either control paint flow, allow cuts to be made, or scrapings to form, or whatever action one chooses to apply, to create a distinctive and controlled expression that has grown to become a discernible aesthetic language. The actual membrane itself still underpins the aesthetics of each piece, although the degree of simplicity or complexity can be regulated and enhanced.

The impact of this work from the viewers experience is quite different. The viewer experiences the results of the work as a flat picture plane rather than an accrual of the method used. The aesthetic appreciation comes through the contemplation of each piece – setting in motion a further process of deep reflection or meditation.

Membrane Art starts as a simple proposition — from undulation to flat.

The undulations represent the internal workings of nature and, conversely, the flat plane becomes a medium for human interpretation and as in much abstract representations, an object of contemplation or meditation.

Top: An example of an undulating state (geometry of the loose membrane). Bottom: This is the unfolded state (flat plane) of the top painting. Illustrating the compression of depth (a medium for human interpretation).

Mounted works

— a medium for human observation.

The work investigates a variety of actions and events that only occur if the membrane has been in a undulated (folded) state. The undulations represent the internal workings of nature and, conversely, the flat plane becomes a medium for human observation.