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In his essay; 'Cultural Identity and Diaspora' (Cambridge Polity Press ISBN 9780761954323 1996) Stuart Hall reinvigorates the language with which we make sense of 'painting' as a practice, a practice that can convey issues about cultural identity and representation in a way that is embedded in the 'process' itself. He proposes two ways to think about ‘cultural identity’ and ‘representation’. The first is in terms of shared culture, collective histories and narratives. In the second sense he proposes a more contemporary explanation of identity; as ‘becoming’ as well as ‘being’. Where the process of making ‘by hand’; transforming, over time the blank canvas, from nothing to something, speaks of this 'becoming something'-'being'. This reading of identity belonging to the future as much as to the past, it invites an imaginative process whereby issues of identity and representation can be tested through visual art practice, painting, by engaging with paintings inherent process(s), processes which endlessly ‘surface’ on its terms, during the act of making.
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From left to right Oil on canvas; 'In the garden' 170cm x 110cm, 'Mr Palmer Senior' 178cm x 132cm, 'INDEX' 240cm x 155cm