a strangeness in my mind
‘The city that used to be mine has become unfamiliar and strange. You’ve left to a place where my thoughts cannot travel to; once alive, the city has fallen silent. I fear being with you, I fear being alone.’
This series explores my own relationship with loss and grief. These images show a black and white city that appears unfamiliar and strange, evoking a strong sense of loneliness and alienation, a sense of not belonging to the world, of no longer recognising oneself. This series came to be gradually, very unconsciously at first. I started to acknowledge the darkness of the world I was painting, the ambivalence of my subjects and scenes. In the midst of this, a few portraits of women - fiercely beautiful and independent - stood out as glimmers of hope in this darkness.
A strangeness in my mind encapsulates all of that - our sense of alienation from the world and ourselves, and the enduring hope to find our way back, despite everything.
