“Painting is at an interesting crossroads in relation to digital culture and the media - I try to reflect this through the painting’s chaotic visual spaces.” (Michael Stubbs).

In this solo exhibition I presented six medium sized works in an independent space. Continuing with my ongoing studio research which operates at the interface of abstraction and pop, the paintings are constructed by combining poured, abstract configurations of transparent varnishes and opaque household paints with ready-made graphic stencils. The repeated pouring, in conjunction with pop signs, form a physical process of sensual flat-on-flat layering that reveals multiple perspectives and optical depths.

This layering is part of the fracturing process, the breaking up or ‘exploding’ of a recognisable image, a response to the ever expanding proliferation of broadcast and internet-based images that fill our world. Amorphous shapes, sharp-edged logos, scything blocks of colour and silky veils of tinted varnish intrude into the picture planes, fragmenting the surface; it is as though the physicality of the works are coming up against the pixilation of the flattened, immaterial space of the digital image.

Yet an overriding seductiveness is intended; the perfection of the finish and the boldness of the palette alleviate the chaos of the visual explosion; there is a simultaneous interrogation of the sensual as a critical re-configuration of the painted medium in an age of internet information overload.