MR: Your paintings often feel steeped in atmosphere — there’s a sense of heat and intimacy in them. The close-ups, even something like the back of a neck, feel very intimate, almost suspended in time. We’re curious how that atmosphere develops in the studio. Is it something you consciously construct, or does it just happen as you work?

I feel like with the paintings, I never really do anything consciously – well, I’ll consciously decide on an image, and it’s interesting to see how the atmosphere emerges, but I don’t think beforehand “I want to create an intimate atmosphere”. The process itself does become quite intimate, I spend a lot of time with the paintings and work very closely to the surface, this prolonged attention inevitably creates some sense of closeness or attachment.

I don’t know what atmosphere they might carry for the viewer, but for me, they hold the time in which they were painted. When I look at them I can remember how I felt while painting, what podcasts I was listening to. I don’t know how other people experience them – it’s interesting to hear what they feel – but for me, they’re very much tied to a specific emotional duration. The atmosphere isn’t something that is consciously constructed, it’s something that accumulates

MR: Do you reference pictures, or are these images that come to you?

I do use reference pictures. I’ll use a reference mainly to get the lighting right, and sometimes for proportion. But once I’ve got the basics down, I try to move away from the reference and work more from intuition and what feels right.

I’d like to get to a point where I can construct everything completely from my mind, but things look so different when you’re actually painting them. You might think you know what an ear looks like, but when you break it down into paint — into colour, shape, and texture — it’s not the same as how it exists in your head.

MR: There is a tactile quality to your surfaces; gestures and material feel inseparable from emotion. How do you think about touch and physicality in your painting process?

I’m really interested in trying to capture textures. That’s something that will draw me to an image. I’ll see a texture and think, I want to see if I can get that with paint.

I want people to want to touch the work. I like looking at paintings that I want to touch. I’m interested in touch, and in trying to capture touch within the painting itself. There are works where hands are touching, but I’m also physically touching the work so much while making it.

I guess I want people to want to feel it. I want it to look gooey or soft or biting. I’m most interested in getting some type of texture or desire to touch — something tactile.

NZ: So, the title I Love Hot Nights evokes something sensual, but also quite restless — maybe even cinematic. When we spoke about it, we thought of the film Palo Alto. How important are the titles you choose in framing the emotional or psychological entry point into the work? Often people look at the painting and then they look at the name.

I hate titles. I hate having to do titles. I try not to put too much thought into them — it’s kind of whatever pops into my mind at the time, or maybe what song I was listening to.

There were three paintings I did recently for the portraiture show at Girls Girls Girls Gallery. I didn’t know what to call them, but I’d really been loving “Human” by The Killers at the time, so I took three lines from that and used them. I don’t think too much about the titles.

I hate titles. I hate having to do titles. I try not to put too much thought into them – it’s kind of whatever comes to mind in the moment, maybe something from a song I was listening to at the time, sometimes an inside joke with myself. Titles are complicated because they do play a big part in how the work is perceived, but I want the painting to stand on its own. Unfortunately you have to title them. I’ve thought about just calling them “Untitled” and numbering them.