This body of work has taken me through various ways of making images from collage to graffiti, Making links between pre-existent images from mass media to the history of art, the use of various forms of text, the low brow art form of graffiti, computer aided design of Photoshop’s pixels and vectors, its here the language of mass culture, it can exist as a reaction against or as an embrace of society. This is also can be a reaction or an embrace of painting as medium in the world technology and communication.
With an interest in text and popular images, an obvious source for research is the newspapers, by working off the newspapers daily I can spontaneously respond and react to either images or headlines. This process starts quite loose, working quickly on to the printed paper itself, moving quickly through this process I began to work in a more controlled and eventually led to tighter and prejudice way of choosing my images, and unnecessary elements disappear and the focus of my intent, in context and application becomes resolute.
Michael Stafford 