My present work considers the skin’s surface and texture.

Each portrait is a ‘trace of time’ in the subject’s life whilst also linking the subject to me, in my present moment.

Skin is seen as a landscape, a cartographic map of an individual’s life journey and existence. Each line and scar becomes a Memento Mori, whether the palm of the hand or the back of the knee, the lines reveal a unique narrative of each subject’s personal history and yet also represents the inescapable fragility of every human.

“We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swam up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. I wish for all this to be marked on my body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography-to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our tastes or experience. All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps.”

     Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient cited in, James Curley, Human cartography (USA: Truman State University Press, 2002)