My paintings are about people, whether fully depicted, abstracted into the implied face of a machine, or the fragmented scrap of a photo. They are the minds eye of relationships between people and their environment, visual time and space. Working with the nude, I take a layered approach. First and foremost it is a monument to the non-hero. No uniforms or medals, no pearls or fancy dress – just life. On another level it is about relationships. The relationship of artist to model, the model to the box of the canvas, and life to life. The formal elements of composition reinforce the birth to infinity relationship of humanity and boxes. The box of a room or the box of a coffin, how much space the figure element takes up or where it is placed, all important tools for creating an emotional connection to the figure. For me, realism cannot be a scale-model recreation of a visual world but rather a tool of thought and observation, a way of exploring mortality, displaced associations, relationships and the magic of humanity.