The Orient, The Occident explores observations from Edward Said’s Orientalism, the historic genre of Orientalist paintings and the European Imperialist Landscapes of the 18th century. My spaces are constructed from abstracted bonsai forms for a sense of an idyllic space, bound in water to represent life, death and the physical and allegorical separation of nations. The paintings draw upon the inextricable link between historical belief systems and geographical migration and translation of mythologies, such as the first recorded "western" account of the mythical “unicorn” creature in India, 416 B.C, describes a creature with whose horns have magical properties, and to a physical likeness to that of the rhino. The work agitates the cultural confines between mythical and real, and the historical and cultural contexts that shape these manifested representations.


















