"Your poison will become my fuel
You'll be my bittersweet surrender,
My salvation,
And the driving force that will lead to my success." - Redefine Your Wild
I specialise in creating illustrations and collages of a surreal nature, generally employing very vibrant colours in their production. My collages tend to be difficult to reproduce due to the nature of how and where I obtain my raw materials. A few materials I have used in my work includes discarded silver earrings, key rings, feathers, dried petals, imported African beads, sea shells and false eye lashes. I draw my inspiration from a variety of sources that I find in tribal art, folklore, sculpture, photography, fashion, and the Surrealists. Other motivations for my work are extensive travel, life experiences and a vivid imagination.
The whole process of creating collages, of cutting and rearranging, then pasting chosen objects and images onto a canvas to create a final piece of art represents the reconstruction of my own identity. It is as if in creating a collage I am piecing myself back together again, to return to a more stable and balanced inner core. The work primarily focuses on and examines the strengths and frailties of the human heart, in relationships pertaining to love, and also in relationships as a whole. Often the messages are subtle, provoking the viewer to look closely at the artwork in order to find the hidden images within the broader entity of the work. It is upon discovering these that the viewer can then create a story within his or her mind and try to uncover its meaning.
You are probably curious as to why I chose 'Redefine Your Wild' as a website name, instead of my own name. I used to be wild, in the more solitary, self destructive sense of the word, losing myself in various addictions and unsavoury people, through my late teens and early 20s in particular. I needed to find myself another kind of wild, a way I could express myself freely, when overt verbal expression wasn't possible, because nobody around me seemed strong enough to hold my pain. So I retreated into my own wilderness and explored art and words: I taught myself to draw, I cut and pasted collages onto paper card, I listened to music lyrics, I lost myself in books, I wrote poems; I cried, I grew, I flew, I redefined my wild.
Come and join me in the wilderness with any questions, thoughts or revelations.
Email via Instagram: : @redefineyourwild