My work is mainly influenced by British and American Pop. Artists such as Johns, Warhol, Lichtenstein, Indiana, Dine, Hockney, Tilson, Gilbert & George. Modern Pop artists like the Chapmans, Koone and Hirst, and other anarchistic and subversive new developments in art.

My work relies much on found and stolen iconic images, abstract and concrete. I frequently put these images into a new context, but often simply leave them. Often, I place an image onto a surface that works against the foreground, like in "Micky Mouse Cutout" , "Queen Bedhead", "Red Peril" and "Arnold Star". Sometimes I use work by other artists to play about, like on "Dollar Love" and "Dada Wallpaper". I use commonly found imagery, such as guns, skulls, targets and the like. Recent images have been "borrowed" from film stills, many involving women with guns, like in "La La La Lucy".  or "Dead Girl".

Computers have multiplied my opportunities to use and generate images. All work starts its life on screen. I change colour, tone, contrast, simplify shapes, experiment with filters etc. A printout is enlarged and painted. The canvasses, shaped in positive and negative spaces, using found fabrics that lend the pieces their depth. Images such as "English Rose", "He's in your Living Room" and "The unbearable Lightness of Being" use printed fabric in a symbolic manner, supporting both image and meaning.

Many paintings have a strong technological element, such as "Chernobyl Hybrid", in which two red strip lights emit a ghastly glow, or "Red Peril", created on a sewing machine, as well as in paint. "Flower Skull", two paintings behind each other, with a hole cut into the top layer. The final finish is important. Each piece must be well made and well put together. Craftsmanship. No more Nails.

Thanks to Imitate Gallery for their support and for providing a home for my work.

A. Bottenberg, 2005