History Paintings

My current practice considers the spectacle and human drama of politics, power and conflict. In this series of oil paintings, I use imagery found in dramatic candid photographs and videos from online news media. These images often depict political fights and stories from within parliamentary proceedings. I am repositioning these contemporary figures and events within a broader discourse of history painting. I am particularly interested in the settings, architecture and the symbolic, and how they can merge with the strategies used in biblical and iconographic paintings of the past. In this body of work, I envision new narratives where there is an amalgam of times and characters. The symbolism, architecture and clothing shifts, but tropes, events and tableau recur.