Embodiment
Studies in Gesture and Form
An investigation of the human figure through gesture, colour, and mark-making—capturing how bodies inhabit space, move through daily life, and reveal form through paint.
This series explores the figure not as static object but as embodied presence—how we bend, reach, stand, and rest. Working on bold chromatic grounds (ochre, magenta, pink), these paintings privilege gesture over finish, investigating how accumulated marks can suggest weight, movement, and the essential architecture of form.
Each work captures a moment of physical engagement with the world: stooping to retrieve something, the upright pause of contemplation, the weight of a seated body, the reach of an arm. Together they form a meditation on how we reveal ourselves through movement—how the body's architecture emerges through the simplest of gestures.
The bold, non-naturalistic grounds activate pictorial space whilst the gestural handling mirrors the gestural subject—quick, decisive marks capturing quick, decisive movement. These paintings refuse finish in favour of immediacy, prioritising authentic observation over idealised representation.
Works in this Series
IN MOTION III
Oil on prepared ochre ground
IN MOTION IV
Oil on canvas