Phoebe Mills

My painting practice examines the world through porous boundaries that shift between what’s recognisable and what’s unrecognisable. There’s a slippage of belief between a form Not being something, but also Not, Not being that thing. I construct stage-like settings where forms, symbols and imagery commingle, moving through self-generating cycles until they reach the edge of a painting's timeline. I attempt to archive these symbols through engraving and casting, as a way of reaching backward into the painting's history even as the painted surface itself remains in flux. I treat the canvas as an open-ended possibility for making and re-making, each time losing evidence of its origin, yet simultaneously authenticating itself through each iteration. I’m drawn to this slipping away at both ends of a painting's timeline. My paintings both mimic and undo themselves, and the process of making becomes a constantly updated record of change.