My body is caught up in the symmetrical battle on these canvases. Please take away that mirror, reflection line, that Golden Section, perfection, I will never be. We are not perfect, nor beautiful, we are here, that’s enough. We imperfect everything; taking, eating, spoiling, devouring, consuming, ruining and yet we think we have the right to. I want to make beautiful images with an ugly undertone, aesthetically pleasing but appalling. The figures featured are alone even in groups, bound to the weight of the perfection quest. I try to ruin the canvases with stains of food colouring with no control over application or result. I feel less alone in a foreign country, I am liberated like a child lost in translation. I feel close to people I can say only one word to and receive a nod of the head from…’Man dies after confronting youth who threw half eaten chocolate bar into sister’s car’…the internet keeps me up to date with events in England. Too many people crammed in to such a small space keeping their heads down, eyes off each other – through fear? Is it all connected? If we continue putting too much emphasis on the superficial, the surface, are we widening the gap between our inner self and that of others. ‘I’ is not the surface, it’s beneath that, it’s in ‘here’.We are creating a gulf between me and you… I fear you, you fear me, we don’t communicate. I am certain this is the route of many awful things. Many wonderful things too but the awful things surely could be addressed. It’s that reminder that’s needed – we are all intrinsically the same, one, vessel, being – there are too many things used to separate us. Repetition, reflection, the inside of the body or where the body has been – this will fuel the next pieces of work – the space inside, the void within rather than the visible surface. Relating to traveling too, traces of the body, where we/ I have been using stuff/ landscape around me to create husk/ positive form/ shell/ cage/ constriction. Traveling/ wondering reminds me I am not permanent, to constantly move, see, smell, experience – to not settle. Photographing these works with me in them but then left as husks…’Knives are being used in crimes every 8 minutes, 175 per day which is double that of 2 years ago’…I am on the outside looking in.