Getting back to work after an exhibition can feel very random - not quite knowing yet which way to turn. Trying to find a new direction, the results are not homogenous at all - never mind.

The following paintings and drawings, which emerged over the last year, are among my most recent and most precious ones, because I finally allowed myself to let go of aiming for sellable results. 

"I experimented with chance and holding a state of indefiniteness as long as possible, abandoning any agenda towards the outcome.

I begin with a small brush and let it run over the canvas, deliberately withholding too much attention, while staying in the abstract. I stop and see if an inspiring shape arises, and start developing it. If the canvas gets too crammed with lines, I sort them out by colouring intersections, then reducing superfluous lines. There is no item or person on any of the pictures that I drew with a preset intention."

This series of drawings, I think I can safely claim, go back to my last year's intuitive writing exercises. I tried a similar approach in drawing and worked very quickly, going through a large amount of paper. Starting with random lines, they emerged entirely unplanned and bare of intention. Inspired by my then-new studio-mate and collage artist Alison Kurke,

I coloured the works with very thin layers of printed paper.

The paintings I developed in a very similar way - starting each canvas with random lines, sometimes left over from older paintings underneath. While in the ink drawings this process stays visible, the oils, conversely, can be layered, changed and improved. The subjects in the resulting paintings were in no way planned but emerged from jumbles of lines which I then elaborated towards discernable images.

It was a real pleasure to exhibit in Peebles Library, Museum & Gallery's most beautiful showroom!