'It is the play of painting and the art of play that my works pivot upon. The play is simultaneously the iconic subject (the carnivalesque) and the self conscious painting process. Each signifies the other in an attempt to generate an oscillation that is reflected in the relationship of the figure to the ground. In this I feel that the process of making artwork is analogeous to organic processes of disintegration and renewal. The agro-aggressive energy of cure in my work draws on the grotesque at a number of levels, but its main aim is the expression of an antipathy towards the idealism of western metaphysics in favour of an occult pragmatic approach towards growth. As such my work has little concern with 'the landscape' and preoccupation with 'the land'. The artist 1986