Within Touching Distance May 2021 At the outset, I had the view that the obsessively painted weaves and unpicked threads directed thought toward barriers themselves; to the appearance and type of material that often impacts how we understand space within everyday physical areas. Sitting in the gallery space, looking at the work against the backdrop of the last year of lockdowns and social distancing, it is important to make note of the new aspects of the work which have come to light. The paintings resembling woven fabrics started life as ways to draw focus onto the surface materiality of meshes which are often used to break up or surround spaces such as gardens, allotments, building sites or interior spaces. However, through the process of making these types of works, the meditative quality of repeatedly pushing and pulling paint has come to the fore. Of course, the beauty of repetitive mark-making is nothing new within painting, but for me, making these works for Touching Distance was about more than just the same (or similar) actions taking place over and over again. The focus within the making was more about how one brushed line of pigment on substrate related to the next, to the next and so on.
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