Welcome to my web site.
My work comes from an insatiable fascination with people, drama and mystery. It's inspired by many sources - sometimes quite an ordinary event or something obscure and personal. Autobiographical secrets or references naturally occur, however, I do enjoy conceiving characters and situations, frequently drawing on disparate sources, bringing them together in new and unexpected combinations. I often experiment with the human form and / or place them in fantastical situations to further capture and exaggerate identity or to emphasise a particular something about the human condition. In my mythological world people become musical instruments, a body becomes a boat or hair is played like a cello, they might grow wings - they might fly!
I have a very turbulent way of working - subjects continually change their original source of inspiration. Intention is often seduced into very different results once an image is taking shape - I like this - It's the overlap of intent and accident that is most desirable because it impregnates the surface with a history and mystery. I bury and flood images with surface colour and texture, then dig them out again - excavating and scraping away, instinctively finding new inspiration in the underlying layer - new vocabulary, tools to build on my picture and bring it alive. This is why I love printmaking, it allows a very physical, intimate and intriguing relationship with paper, giving these exciting and sometimes inconceivable results.
I want my work to reveal a strong sense of atmosphere and feeling combining boldness with ambiguity which, for the viewer, also project recognisable significant aspects of the human experience.
Corinna Button A.R.E.