This body of work has been produced by the artist in conjunction with undertaking training as an art therapist in a psychiatric unit at a public hospital. The modes of observation and complex encounters between subjects that are fundamental to therapeutic work in this setting have fed the sensibilities of these paintings. Unconscious processing has come to the fore as both subject and process for these works, and notably this is the first body of work produced by the artist that does not contain external referents, but draws on a flow of imagery produced from the artist’s mind. Much of this imagery originated in drawings produced whilst facilitating or observing art therapy groups in this setting.

The figures in these paintings are not speculative beings, but ways of figuring our being in the world – our social relations that at times are simultaneously nurturing and extractive, inquisitive and vulnerable. The actual and the real – what we experience of the world on a conscious level, and the unbearable force that lies beneath the surface.