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Find me at my new MYSPACE site at: http://www.myspace.com/nicolabendrey
"I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity."
:- From "Elm" by Sylvia Plath
My work is about instinct, process, and duality. The spontaneity of the Abstract Expressionists and the automatic drawings of the Surrealists have always been a source of inspiration to my practice. The drive to explore the subconscious through conscious production is very intriguing to me. In doing so, I invariably find that what manifests on the canvas is never what I expected to find.
I’m constantly driven to pry into the ugliness of the human condition and to unearth a shard of beauty within it. While exposing my unconscious desires, I employ the use of intense colours to offset the horrors I feel in the nature of the work. Initially, I want the work to appear joyous but upon a more careful observance, I want to inspire a tension between two divergent emotional qualities. I believe that there is a horrific beauty in all things on the earth.
The intention is to explore the ongoing pulse of the subconscious with an emphasis on the effect that gravity has on the medium. By pouring the paint down the canvas, I relinquish control to my subconscious. The early steps of the work stem from a guttural and automatic place but what follows is based on intellect and reason. As I begin to see what defines the work, I become progressively tentative about the choices I make compositionally.
