"Force" was a solo exhibition held at Arte Giani, Frankfurt Germany in October 22 - January 23. I exhibited 5 works; a 9 meter long painted frieze titled "Force" as well as well as 4 smaller works on paper. The paintings in this exhibition are Gouache paintings; some depict scenes where small groups people are sitting or standing in pensive poses, some depict abstracted decorative patterns in intense colours. The characters in the paintings are from a lexicon of friends and colleagues working in some way in arts and education, they are described in a detailed way, in a painterly language that I am developing drawing on a wide range of historical and contemporary cartoons and illustrations, botanical illustrations, decorative patterns from Persia and China as well as Scandinavia.

“Force” is the title of the exhibition and also the main work within it, which is a 9 meter long Frieze made from Gouache paintings made on watercolour paper and set together in a wooden frame to form one work. This an ongoing project titled “Force” started in 2018 . In this work the research question is a search for an authentic painterly language, and if it is possible to use the format of the Frieze to push together a complex and sometimes disparate set of visual references? Using simple but historical techniques and materials I am attempting to contain something that is at the same time tangential and slowly emerging through repetition and variations over the same motifs. Examining how I can describe ornament and human figures are longstanding preoccupations within my research, drawing from the history of painting, that of decorative arts as well as popular culture. Referencing classical Roman and Greek Friezes, medieval tapestries, post war feminist tapestries for example Hannah Ryggen, Expressionist painting, Persian carpets, Chinese vases Disney cartoons. This work contributes to a recent interest, within contemporary art, for both narrative figuration and traditional crafts, in particular textiles.