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The Secret Life of Criminals - 2000
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Multi-channel video installation
Installation view of The Secret Life of Criminals. Paul Petro Contemporary Art. Toronto, 2001

The Secret Life of Criminals is a series of seven intimate, small scale film and video installations comprised of short gestural narratives based on observations of human behaviour. These mini dramas are based on occurrences, interactions or acts of folly which play out daily in any bedroom, bus, street corner, car, restaurant, park, ravine. These witnessed events signal distress, melt down or illness as metaphor to larger issues confounding our existence.

I am interested in how people undo themselves and seemingly participate in their own misfortune. I see this behavioral paradox - of short circuiting one's best interests, as the root of my continuing interest and engagement with narrative form.

The work explores tensions within relationships and reflects the complex and paradoxical nature of morality, assumptions and desire. It was provoked by a childhood memory and informed by research into the unsolved murder of a middle aged woman within a sculptural component.