Dreamworks

Description by the artist

Dreamworks is the first of a series of monochromatic chalk paintings that accompanies my dissertation which illustrates how the notion of the afterlife can be depicted within landscape painting, without being too literal. This painting immediately grabs its audience’s attention because of the large ring around the stars, in the centre of the composition which is set ablaze by an element which is neither smoke, ice or fire. Yet this strange substance that stands out from the more recognizably painted clouds, seems to give the piece a somewhat mysterious quality, so the viewer can only speculate as to what the image is trying to symbolize.
The inspiration behind Dreamworks was from the artist Vija Celmins. Celmins in comparison to my works are less illustrative, but in terms of the afterlife, both our works operate and convey this theme in very similar ways because she too produces monochromatic paintings only using chalk so the viewer can get a sense of what the images are without too much information being given away.