Art

Painting has recently become central to my existential inquiry into why we do what we do, and how it feels to do it. Most of my artworks are portraits of some kind, explorations of humans in the built environment. The painting on the left is not; it was my first oil painting. As a researcher, one learns to practice and experiment with method. I’ve always made art, but moving to oils encouraged me to attempt a deeper ethnographic enquiry through paint.

Blotter All My Friends

In January 2025 I began a new research project: I wanted to see what painting could tell me about my alienation and loneliness in the city of London. From 2020-2024, I’d drawn portraits in the moments between my academic writing, and now I wanted to give the image pride of place. Taking inspiration from the work of Peter Doig, Jennifer Packer, Noah Davis, and Imad Habbab, this series explores my friendships as they are pulled from exterior to interior, intruded upon/supported by objects and spaces, and influenced by light, weather, and atmosphere. These are posthuman paintings, where the human is just one of the many ‘intra-active becomings’ in a moment of affective intensity. The series is also an autoethnographic enquiry: it speaks to our contemporary culture of neoliberal individualism, where friendships can be commodified into ‘networks’, and success is equated with hyper mobility. I wanted to find ways to express the duality of pain/joy, connection/alienation that characterises both my friendships and my relationship to the city. On the right are thumbnails of the series so far; scroll down to get a closer look.