Oriel

Oriel sits on the boundary between painting and sculpture, between a painted object and a painting of an object. It is constructed as a traditional canvas on a Sapele stretcher, with a subtle sculptural oval in its centre constructed from layers of canvas curving away from the viewer at a logarithmic scale. Theoretically the very centre of a logarithmic curve is at an infinite distance. In practice this is impossible, but the eye is drawn into infinity and the result is a visual uncertainty as to whether the viewer is looking at a shape protruding from the canvas or into a hole of uncertain depth. It is also not clear whether this is a painted illusion or an actual shape until the viewer can walk around the painting and so convince themselves of its sculptural nature. Pictorially it is possible to read the painting as representational, and the intent is not purely conceptual - rather the above is a framework or a vehicle to what at some point in the making has indeed become a painting, something visceral and emotional.