Wanted

The Escapees

Some of the creatures in my paintings have escaped.

I imagine them slipping quietly beyond the edges of the canvas, disappearing into cracks, travelling through unfamiliar places, moving unseen beneath our feet. Where they are going, and what they might be looking for, I’m not entirely sure.

Perhaps they have always been there.

Wanted continues an idea first explored in Creatures of Character, where insects began to take on personalities and imagined lives. Here, they seem to have wandered further from the worlds in which they first appeared.

The title suggests an old wanted poster: a face, a name, a reason to be looking. But these are unlikely fugitives. They are small, unfamiliar and easily missed.

Perhaps they are wanted for escaping.

Perhaps they simply want to be found.

Worlds Beneath Our Feet

My fascination with insects began long before they found their way into my paintings.

As a child, I would watch ants disappear into cracks in the pavement, climbing over stones and objects as though they were crossing some vast and unfamiliar landscape. I could watch them for ages, wondering where they were going.

When I found dead bumblebees in the garden, I would carefully bury them and make a small cross from twigs above them. I don't remember deciding to do this. It simply seemed like the right thing to do.

Perhaps I was acknowledging something I didn't yet have words for.

Even then, an insect could seem like more than an insect. A tiny life could suddenly hold a strange weight, curiosity, tenderness, sadness, wonder.

Looking back, I think it was the mystery of them that drew me in. Their lives were taking place all around me, but mostly beyond my understanding. They were familiar and completely alien at the same time.

A Curious Collection

The creatures in Wanted come from many different places: beetles, moths and spiders with vivid markings, unusual structures and forms that can seem almost improbable.

Some are brightly coloured. Others are muted and delicate. Some appear beautiful at first glance, then slightly unsettling when you look longer.  I am drawn to the details that are easy to overlook.  The strange curve of a leg, the arrangement of an antenna, the pattern of a wing, the unexpected geometry of a body.

At times they seem almost animated, as though each creature has arrived carrying its own expression or attitude.

I wonder what we project onto them.

A face where there isn't one.
A personality.
A story.

Perhaps this is where the escape begins.

Marks, Patterns and Movement

The insects seemed to lend themselves naturally to repetition.

Lines, dots and dashes began to echo the structures I was looking at, the fine divisions of wings, the rhythm of legs and antennae, the intricate patterns carried across their bodies.

I found myself returning to these marks again and again.

A line becomes a contour.
A dot becomes a pattern.
A repeated mark begins to suggest movement.

The marks are small and deliberate, but together they build something larger. Form begins to emerge through repetition, with similar gestures appearing across different creatures and different paintings.

Beneath their differences, certain shapes and rhythms begin to repeat. A curve here, a line there, a scattering of dots and dashes. Slowly, a shared visual language begins to emerge.

Although each insect has its own character and appearance, these repeated forms create a quiet connection between them, as though they might belong to the same strange world.

Perhaps they are connected not only by where they come from, but by the marks they leave behind.

Insects Within Art History

I’m not the first artist to look at an insect and see something beyond the creature itself.

In Dutch still-life painting, a butterfly, beetle or fly might appear among flowers and fruit, quietly introducing the idea of mortality into a scene of abundance.

Louise Bourgeois's spiders became entangled with memory, motherhood and her relationship with her mother. For Salvador Dalí, ants appeared repeatedly throughout his work, carrying associations of decay, desire and time.

The insects remain recognisable, yet somehow become something else.

A symbol.
A memory.
A character.
Or perhaps simply themselves, seen differently.

Where They Come From

The creatures in Wanted have travelled here from distant parts of the natural world, California, New Guinea, Madagascar, Australia, Central and South America, Europe and Asia.  Each belongs somewhere else.

Each has its own habitat, its own patterns of survival, its own place within a world that continues whether we notice it or not.

Insects are everywhere, although much of their activity happens quietly and beyond our attention. They move through soil, flowers, leaves and darkness. They pollinate, recycle, nourish and connect.

There is something extraordinary about that hidden world.  The paintings begin with something real, but perhaps they also leave a little room for what cannot be seen.

Perhaps Wanted is partly an attempt to bring a few of its inhabitants into view.

To pause over them.

To wonder where they have come from.

To notice the traces they leave behind.

And perhaps, once we have found them, to wonder where they might go next.

If you are curious to discover who these escapees really are, explore the paintings and meet the creatures behind the images.

Explore the series Wanted →