De_coding paintings

De-coding paintings aim not only to speak to present-day urgencies but also to engage with the condition of contemporary painting itself. One of the most pressing questions for painters today is how to respond to the rapid onset and proliferation of digital, image-based technologies. In this context, my work offers a gesture toward that question—attempting to remain relevant, or at the very least to make a record of the conditions in which it is made.

"…we live in the wake not only of modernist painting and sculpture but of postmodernist deconstructions of these forms… in the wake not only of the prewar avant-gardes but of the postwar neo-avant-gardes as well. […] What comes after these ends?"

Hal Foster, Design and Crime: And Other Diatribes (London: Verso, 2002)

My paintings not only seek to address present-day urgencies but also engage directly with the condition of contemporary painting itself, particularly in response to the rapid proliferation of digital, image-based technologies. In After Modernist Painting, Craig Staff describes how we continue to work "in the wake not only of modernist painting and sculpture but of postmodernist deconstructions of these forms… in the wake not only of the prewar avant-gardes but of the postwar neo-avant-gardes as well. […] What comes after these ends?"

Within this expanded condition of aftermath, the works presented here attempt a modest but attentive response—positioning painting as both a reflective surface and an active record of the present moment. They aim to remain responsive to shifting technological conditions while acknowledging painting's ongoing negotiation with its histories, contexts, and future possibilities.

Painting series, De-Coding Paintings, MO'D 2025.

Drawing on the cybernetic theories of Norbert Wiener, contemporary painting can be understood as operating within systems of feedback, circulation, and exchange rather than as a fixed or isolated object. In this expanded context, painting responds to the influence of screens, digital image environments, and shifting modes of perception—where colour moves between pigment and emissive display and meaning emerges through interaction with viewers and site. Positioned within these networks, painting functions as an open and responsive structure—embedded within technological, spatial, and social systems that continue to shape how images are produced, encountered, and understood today.

Referencing the systems theory of Niklas Luhmann, the artwork operates within structures of communication rather than as a fixed, autonomous object. Meaning emerges through relationships between site, viewer, image, and display—where distinctions are produced through positioning, colour coding, and spatial arrangement. Within this framework, painting and installation function as embedded systems, responsive to their environments and shaped through processes of circulation, encounter, and interpretation.