Artist statement

“Don’t play with your food” is, mostly, spoken to children, a strange saying; creating this sense that food and dining must be taken seriously. In some sense it should be, however, I think it creates desinence with food. Food becomes unenjoyable, a chore to be completed three times a day. Yet, as I began to “play with food” both from learning to cook with my family to developing my own cooking as an adult, I began to appreciate the art of food: the delicate balance of flavourings; the magazines and TV that centre around it; how a skilled chef could present a gorgeous plate from an ugly raw fish. This unlocked a whole different angle to the phrase “playing with food”, and through this exploration I’ve conjured a lot of my imagery, becoming fascinated with the raw, bulk ingredients to the full plate. This concept of “playing” has led to an exploration of scale in my recent work, both printing at a larger scale and exploring the fine details of textures. I’ve been experimenting with the colour palette of my subject’s, locally sourced fish are often dull with a few hints of interesting hues. I like to expose these and play with the saturation, vibrancy and contrasts. I find that bold colours bring a similar feeling as a good plate will. I’ve leaned towards screen printing as I love the way the process involves a lot of your body, like how cooking is very hands on, ‘a labour of love’ some would say.