In My Happy Place (2025) has salvaged buttons and comic book pages which are connected through the usage of acrylic paint. The black background allows these elements to pop out impressively – especially with the acrylics as the lines and marks are extremely vibrant. The foliage and the tree within the work are composed of both the pages and, in the tree: buttons, give these elements a more organic feel as the pages flow and move.
Below the tree in the work is a figure sitting down enveloped in the book they are reading. The glowing outlines of every detail (the foliage and the objects) create a very dreamlike and surrealistic atmosphere- even the contrast of the black background and the vibrancy gives the work an appearance as though its colours have been inverted. Or even a print-like aesthetic. Furthermore, the buttons help to add dimension to the work as it has challenged the flatness of collage and painting giving life to the otherwise mundane buttons.
From the first glance at Blue Hotel (2025) – the scene is extremely dark and gloomy- from the wilting flower in the vase to the mostly shadowed scene illuminated by cold blue. The cold blue gives the work a ghostly atmosphere as though we are looking at the scene through a photograph negative. Hence, this provides the scene with a very unoccupied living feeling which seems to be filled by a ghostly presence that is unseen but felt.
The usage of blue helps to emphasise the emotional impact of the work as it slows down the atmosphere and infers a stillness to the scene. It is as though the scene is set in the early morning or late night where everything has frozen in the shadow. Furthermore, the only light within the work comes from the windows suggesting that only moonlight lights the scene up giving a much stronger melancholic presence to the work.