Otherwise, Excess

13 Feb – 28 Feb 2026

Wester Gallery, Newcastle

The painterly results for ‘Otherwise, Excess’ investigate a transformative approach to the fragmentation of existing artwork, found imagery and waste material. The purely abstract oil on panel outcomes, sit alongside canvas and paper ‘by-products’, emergent only through the originals production, discovered in overlooked margins and discarded material destined for the studio bin.

Repurposing is strategically employed as a catalyst, part of a new economy of practice, cyclical, reinventive, and less wasteful. Whereby a piece of pre-used irregular shaped masking tape can become a featured element of a collage, or paint residue found on newsprint, previously used to blot excess liquid is renewed on more receptive surfaces, canvas and paper.

Re-examination of catalogued found imagery sourced online of real-world objects with abstract qualities, subjects believed to hold political agency or the power to disrupt. Images of hand-built vessels made from scrap materials such as tarp, duct tape and foam, titled ‘chug boats’, created by refugees fleeing across the Florida Strait. Discarded Immediately upon landing, their remains are a testament to the ingenuity and creativity shown by those seeking to escape social and economic hardship. Mirroring this resourceful approach to material, at the end of the painterly journey very little content or subject matter remains.