Seven Sacred Sins +

Several years ago I had set myself the goal of finding a new way of combining black and white photography and painting, but without going the route of using an inkjet printer and canvas (although the option to do so in the future still lies firmly in my mind). I was seeking something very textural and tactile, where the surface expression of paint and photography could combine elegantly, but without the final product needing to a perfect or pristine. I found the ideal working method through a process of image transfers using a standard ink toner printer, paper and/or acetate, and acrylic gel medium. The process is a relatively simple procedure not unlike transferring a tattoo sticker onto your arm/body. The resulting artwork has a vintage flavour that is purely tactile and real.

Below is a collection that is inspired by the seven deadly sins, namely: pride, greed, lust, gluttony, envy, wrath and sloth. As a young child growing up in the Canadian prairies, I was influenced spiritually by both my peers and my parents. The sins were not strictly taught to me, but the idea of sin and its consequences was clear. In time, I had to dispel everything and begin anew. As an adult, I am not so much confronted with the religious aspects, but the emotional aspects and it’s connection to our ego environment. This series of work is a reinvestigation of primordial human emotion as represented through animals. Upon completion of the collection, I felt compelled to rename the title of the series to ‘Seven Sacred Sins’, to reflect my idea that the sins are not ‘deadly’ but more a sacred condition of the human psyche. It is our ego; without it, we essentially return to our witnessing self. There is nothing inherently wrong with sin, as it is the nature of humanity, but from a low level of where we ultimately come from.

NOTE: This series is available for Art Leasing