You have been working with focus on portraits over the last 50 years. How do you find your locations and subjects?

There is no formula for finding my human subjects. In some cases I have known people who I thought might work out as subjects and for decades I might not be able to complete a satisfactory image. On other occasions, I have consummated a satisfactory image within minutes of meeting the subject. Most importantly, every aspect of my images is ultimately a subject as I consider my images to be organic. Furthermore, for the last two decades there are far more animals than people in my images. During some of my projects such as “Boarding House” and “Asylum of the Birds” I worked for many years in the same location. In some of my other projects I found locations which were compatible with my aesthetic and where I could successfully interact with the subjects.

There are usually lots of animals represented in your work, is there any emblematic meaning to this? What is your perspective on the connection between animals and humans?

Human and animal behaviour are intricately linked. Most of what we experience as human is a product of evolution which is embedded in primal drives and instincts. It has always been of great interest to me to reveal the crossover between the two. On the other hand, humanity is alienated from nature and this divisive relationship is made clear in many of my images.

When analyzing your artworks I feel there is always a strong contrast and duality represented. How would you describe this?

My images are layered in meanings most of which are visual in nature but comprehensible to the subconscious mind. On many occasions, there are opposing meanings that pervade the imagery which make it particularly difficult to simply define meaning other than to use such words as Ballenesque or perhaps enigmatic.