Artist Statement: Shades of Red (2024)
Featured Works:
1. Whispers of Lover's Embrace
2. Trees of Everlasting Love
3. Dreams of Leafy Hearts
The Stratigraphy of Emotion In this series, I explore the stratigraphy of the human psyche through the literal and metaphorical ""Shades of Red."" Red is the primal colour of the life force—the hue of the heart, the vein, and the root—yet it exists in an infinite spectrum of intensity. By transitioning through wine red, crimson, and blush pink, these works map the emotional distance between visceral passion and fragile vulnerability.
The core of the work lies in the physicality of the ""thicket."" Through the meticulous, meditative process of hand-cutting and layering paper, I construct dense networks of trees, branches, and brambles. This organic chaos acts as a psychological barrier; the viewer must look through the tangled forest to find the depth within. Titles such as Whispers of Lover's Embrace and Trees of Everlasting Love suggest that affection, much like nature, is a complex ecosystem—a place where one can both find sanctuary and become lost.
By encasing these organic, ""wild"" compositions within a gold foil box frame, I am performing an act of conservation. The gold transforms the frame into a reliquary, elevating the raw, tangled emotions of the ""red"" spectrum into something sacred and archival. The resulting shadow play between the layers ensures that the artwork is never static, mirroring the ever-shifting nature of our internal landscapes.