I use portraiture to explore the subtle emotional interaction in relationships. The work in this final show is a response to the above statement by the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Lacan is referring to an abstract understanding of the word relationship. He is positing that men and women simply do not 'interact' with each other. These paintings are made to investigate the facial expressions that reveal the kaleidoscope of emotions that exist between people. The images I use are photographed from frozen moments in film. I try to capture the facial expressions that would best enable what poet T. Alan Broughton describes as the power of the 'detail' in poetry. Broughton explains how: 'It is in the concrete and vivid detail that poems live and through which they convey emotions and make their ideas vivid.'

In traditional portaiture a person sits for long periods of time and the face falls into a closed expression that never reveals the vulnerability of pain or the sudden ecstatic sensation of happiness. The use of the photographic image in my practice is an immediate way in which to record the variety of emotions that form the language of relationships. Painter Eric Fischl describes the unique ability of the camera to freeze that instant: 'there is something about a photograph that you can't get any other way, [...] the photo cuts time so thinly that you get gestures you don't normally notice. [...] For me the photo is a view into the soul of a character because so much of the arrested motion is unselfconscious [...]'.

The portraits shown in pairs are placed at different distances. Each separation has its own particular spacing to reflect and enhance the emotions being portrayed. The decision behind each length was arrived at after moving the images around and chosing the distance that allowed the coupling to make sense. A slight alteration can multiply the emotional impact of each individual pair.

I conclude that this work supports Roland Barthes thinking in his book 'A lover's discourse'; the emotions that exist between people are varied and complicated, since much is imagined and total union or understanding is impossible. Reflected in these portraits are the longing, sadness and jealousies that exist in the quest for a perfect union, along with the occasional moment of joy in the belief of having reached that union. As Robert Browning concludes in his poem 'Two in the Campagna', I aim to portray in this work:

'Infinite passion, and the pain
Of finite hearts that yearn.'

The cultural reference points of my practice include the following artists, film makers and writers; Marlene Dumas, Roni Horn, Gregory Crewdson, Eric Fischl, Paula Rego, Christian Boltanski, John Baldessari, David Lynch, Alfred Hitchcock, Tenessee Williams, Roland Barthes, Slavoj Zizek and Jacques Lacan .