Can Paintings Dream?

My thesis research investigates how the physical and material processes of painting can elicit memory and dreaming. Through the material research of painting, this thesis explores what memory could look like and how it behaves. Painting for me becomes a mode to access personal memories and imagine alternative realities. My physical studio space becomes a dwelling place for dreaming. Mixing acrylic paint, engaging with colour, building shaped canvases and putting brush to canvas all encompass a process-based approach to research within my thesis. In the large-scale shaped canvases, imagery of doorways and windows from my previous homes function as a place of origin. Memories, even those unremembered, line the walls of the spaces we grew up in, they are embedded and woven into its architecture. This imagery is used as a space to hold and embrace playful mark-making and colour application. While their reference to home architecture is rooted in real spaces, my paintings are also imaginary. Moments spoken and movements made in these spaces are transformed into form and colour. The painted mark traces memory; with liveliness it manifests into a visual representation of daydreaming.