HELLO ELIOT, IT IS GREAT TO HAVE YOU ON BOARD OUR CURRENT VEHICLES FOR CHANGE INITIATIVE AND THANK YOU FOR TAKING SOME TIME TO CHAT WITH US TO TALK ABOUT YOUR ART PRACTICE. 

TO START, I WOULD LOVE TO BEGIN AT THE START, SO CAN  YOU TALK ABOUT THE ORIGINS OF YOUR ART PRACTICE? WHAT FIRST COMPELLED YOU TO TRANSLATE YOUR INTERNAL LANDSCAPE INTO THE VISUAL LANGUAGE CENTRED AROUND  MYTH-MAKING AND REPETITION WE SEE IN YOUR WORK TODAY?

Emulating my older sister.  I wanted to be cool like her. She made art and listened to cool music.  That’s the start start. As for an art practice as an adult, that came at around age 20 when I realized I could leave school, get a job, learn through self-motivation and experience. All the while using all available free time to practice making art.  The library was and is a hell of a place! And never underestimate a bedroom with a desk.  Specifically, in regard to the type of work I make now, I made a drawing -a result of tangential thoughts- of a car between two mountains with two planets in the sky.  My closest friend and a new love (later to be my partner and mother to our children) both responded significantly to it.  After that I just figured I would roll with it and make another.  I responded to people I love.

CAN YOU SPEAK ABOUT HOW YOUR USE OF COLOUR DEVELOPED OVER TIME? WAS THERE A SPECIFIC MOMENT, INFLUENCE, OR SHIFT IN YOUR THINKING THAT LED YOU TOWARD THIS HEIGHTENED, ALMOST ELECTRIC CHROMATIC LANGUAGE?

For most of my life, making art, I have never taken much time to think about colour in an organized way. However, my partner Margot put an oil stick in my hand, many years ago, and that changed everything.  I loved what this specific medium feels like to use.  So, I just bought all the colours and I try to balance maximalism with restraint. Maybe that general approach breeds a language? 

THERE’S OFTEN A STRONG SENSE OF BALANCE, AND SOMETIMES EVEN NEAR-SYMMETRY, BETWEEN THE CAR, THE SURROUNDING FOLIAGE, AND THE GLOWING ARCHITECTURAL ELEMENTS. HOW DO YOU APPROACH COMPOSITION IN YOUR WORK?

Near balance but never true balance. Never literal and accurate symmetry.  No mirrors but a feeling of doubling or inversion none the less.  I think that is fair to say.  My approach is to fill the entire space.  Work until it seems like there is something I can look at that may be able to look back at me.  

YOU RECENTLY MADE A NEW WORK ON A PIECE OF OUR REPURPOSED LORRY TARPAULIN, DID YOU FIND THAT WORKING ON THIS UNCONVENTIONAL MATERIAL, WITH CLOSE TIES TO INDUSTRIAL TRAVEL SPARK ANY NEW DIRECTIONS IN YOUR WORK? BE IT TEXTURE, COLOR RESPONSE, OR CONCEPTUAL APPROACH, OR EVEN INFLUENCE THE WAY YOU THINK ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MEDIUM AND SUBJECT?

New materials and a longstanding tangential approach to subject matter in my studio practice made this experience with the tarpaulin quite a welcome one.  I tend to accumulate scraps, detritus, parts and pieces as it is, but I have never worked on tarp like this before.  Like anytime using a new material there is an experimentation period, incubation of results, and then, hopefully a strong set of process principals one can practice repeating.  The challenge with this was that I didn’t want to paint what I typically paint, I wasn’t sure how the materials would come together but I only had one chance.  Uncertainty can be exhilarating. 

CAN YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT THE WORK YOU HAVE MADE FOR US? WAS THERE A PARTICULAR PLACE OR JOURNEY WHICH INSPIRED THE PIECE?

I have made a painting which is a facsimile of a drawing. The drawing is of houses on stilts on islands with smoke coming out of their chimneys. In the past year I have made a few dozen drawings of this image.    The imagery in this piece is a depiction of a memory of a place from my past.  The images have revealed to me a reality within the subject of communication.   There was a cookhouse -a communal dining hall- on an island in Maine that I would go to with my family in the summertime when I was a young child. The house was cedar shingled sea-beaten grey.  It stood on a tangle of wooden posts above a rocky outcropping at the edge of the island. There was a large iron bell outside the front door that kids could ring to call the inhabitants of the island to a mealtime.  A few years ago, a hurricane swept this house away.  I can’t go to the island anymore, so I can’t be sure, but from land it looks as though there is no trace that the building ever existed.  

AS YOUR WORK OFTEN REFLECTS AN EVOLVING PERCEPTION OF THE NATURAL WORLD, DOES ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY OR CONCERN FOR ECOLOGICAL CHANGE CONSCIOUSLY INFORM ANY OF THE THEMES IN YOUR PAINTINGS, OR IS THE NATURAL WORLD IN YOUR WORK MORE OF SYMBOLIC SPACE RATHER THAN A COMMENTARY ON ENVIRONMENTAL REALITIES?

A symbolic space.  Potentiality.

YOUR PAINTINGS DEPICT AN INTENSE VARIETY OF STROKES, TEXTURES, AND LINEWORK THAT SEEM ALMOST ALIVE IN THEMSELVES. DO YOU SEE THE ACT OF MARK-MAKING IN YOUR PAINTINGS REFLECTING OR COMMENTING ON HUMANKIND’S IMPRINT ON NATURE OR THE LANDSCAPE AT LARGE?

Not at all.  I see my drawing or painting style as just what my body does when my mind wants one of its ideas made physical.  The relationship between my physical application of paint or depiction of an object and a greater intentionality are incidental.  

WHAT CONTINUES TO DRIVE YOU TO KEEP MAKING ART? IS IT A NEED TO UNDERSTAND YOUR OWN INNER LANDSCAPE, A DESIRE TO COMMUNICATE WITH OTHERS, OR SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY THAT KEEPS YOU RETURNING TO THE CANVAS?

It can be those things.  Sometimes it is.  Other times it’s a form of addiction.  Maybe therapy.  Maybe escape. Maybe a meditation. I love making art. No matter how cliché or unique my answer could be it doesn’t matter.  I continue to show up to my studio because the alternatives just don’t have the same attraction.  It’s fun to list the things you love about something, probably invigorating, but it means that you will run out of words, and I don’t want that for anything I truly love. 

FOLLOWING THE TOPIC OF DEPICTING EVOLVING LANDSCAPES, CAN YOU TELL US WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU? ARE THERE NEW PROJECTS, THEMES, OR MEDIUMS THAT YOU’RE PARTICULARLY EXCITED TO START EXPLORING IN YOUR WORK? 

I am working on a show of paintings, drawings, and sculptures right now. The show will be in the south of France this summer (2026).  The piece I have made for 4BYSIX typifies what the imagery of the show will center on. There will be much colour, diversity of materials and compositions, and wide ranging scale.