Artist Statement
Robert Hughes commented about Frank Auerbach’s paintings, ‘Heavy paint looks worthy; it suggests mucky integrity.' [1] Indeed, Auerbach seems to embody a traditional notion of authenticity, working only from the model or landscape and labouring for hundreds of hours on a painting.
What happens when the source for the heavily painted surface is not intensive observation of the figure but a picture from Facebook? My work examines how cultural values are defined in a world in which the image is becoming increasingly expendable. I paint from digital images, often found on the Internet and Facebook, to explore what material authenticity means in our digital environment.
[1] R. Hughes, Frank Auerbach (London, Thames and Hudson, 1990), pp. 10-11.