Kevin Pickering

I describe myself as a Mixed Media Artist/Printmaker. My mixed media works use a variety of textile mediums and techniques and often include found or re-cycled objects. My main interest is texture and the manipulation of surface to produce three-dimensional forms. Over the past few years, printmaking, the 'safer' more environmentally friendly kind, has increasingly begun to take over my practice. I find that whilst working into the metal plates that are used to create the images, they often take on a gratifying sculptural aspect. In general I choose 'acrylic resist' etching above other techniques because it provides me with a greater mark-making vocabulary. The inspiration for my work comes from an infinite variety of sources since I like the freedom to explore everything. However, recurring themes throughout my work are different perceptions of beauty and the aesthetics of decay and degradation. It is the exploration of the effects of nature on man-made objects and the surface changes that result from the decaying processes that is my principal interest. Atmospheric conditions, the environment and time itself produce textures and colours that are both transient and ephemeral yet often spectacular. It is those intervals where nature overtakes man's best efforts to renew and sustain himself that we often find that aesthetic quality we call beauty