2023

Biotic / Abiotic predominantly is a small collection of 2023 sketchbook process works and a few final mixed media works on paper, rendered with charcoal, fixative, acrylic paint, watercolour, gouache, brush pen and pens. Unless gifted, the majority materials used are animal friendly. The theme focuses on the interdependence of nature’s fragments – the micro’s domino affect on the macro scale. These are the small particles and surrounding elements that provide quality foundation for life. The use of mark-making in these sketches renders the known into what feels extra-terrestrial. Echoes of the familiar became strange when morphed into clouds, burbling rivers over rocks adjacent to the swaying rhythms of air combing through reeds, cacophonies of foliage, maximalist expressions of matter densely reaching upward, curling around and crawling over whatever it can in its expansion for the sun. Biotic / Abiotic is devoid of human depiction as the focus is on the vibrancy of nature: of growth and decay tumbling over itself, falling forward, snowballing in time; gaining a momentum not yet seen in how it inevitably affects living animals and humans.

The tiny universes that sometimes go unnoticed.

These process works were done as improvisation and seeds for a future expansion of ideas. The sketchbook in which the original artworks were made were part of a 2021 collaboration with artist, Elize de Beer, titled, Holding Space for Creativity, where some of the gold painted spine guards on blue Malmero paper of the physical book show through the center pages of these images.