OBSESSION: Trilobite Collection

I have always had an interest in geology, and in fossils in particular. As a child, a favourite pastime was wading up and down rivers, collecting rocks and fossils.

My Trilobite Collection suite features serial imagery (multiples of similar images), which allows me to play with and explore my interest in colour and other formal artistic concerns while keeping my subject matter constant.

The trilobite, an extinct class of sub-marine creatures, has proved to be the perfect image for me to indulge this way of working, as well as satisfying my interest in the fossil record. There are more than 17,000 species of trilobites, although I have restricted my artistic exploration to approximately thirty species. I have selected types that show some of the amazing diversity of these remarkable animals. Its range in shape -- from 'garden-variety', to flamboyant, to sometimes downright weird - has captured my imagination and developed into an ongoing series exploring shape and colour.

My obsession is, in fact, as much with colour and colour relationships as it is with the trilobite image. My interest is not in reproducing these creatures with anatomical exactitude, but in using the basic shape and variety of trilobites for an ongoing "theme and variations" body of work.