The Copulation Study series, inspired by the conception of our child, began with the notion of procreation. Copulation also referred to the idea of photomontage and the coupling of mechanical and manual image-making processes. Words like transformation and metamorphosis embody my fascination with photomontage because they describe a physical, corporeal change. My creative process has endeavoured to merge painting and photography into a single inseparable form, fused beneath the picture plane to substantiate these transformations.

I began this series with the premise of, “…awakening one morning from uneasy dreams…1” to discover myself transformed into a Homo sapiens. My work is autobiographical, even in the strict conventional sense my images are self-portraits. Photomontage creates an inverted mirror-world in which inner and outer realities can be seamlessly fused.

Just as dream is plagued with fears and apprehensions so are my images transfigured by outrage and anxiety about the world. It is here at this more expressive level that my work re-engages with the notion of documenting something of my time and place. Now copulation in its new convoluted ideology extends beyond the coupling of mechanical and manual image-making processes to the coupling of mechanical and organic form and procreation is impregnated with the anxiety of sending life into the future.

*1. Jorge Luis Borges, Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius in Ficciones, New York, Grover Press 1962

*2. Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis in The Basic Kafka, Pocket Books, NY, 1979.