The face in the mirror doesn’t exactly look as we feel. Inside we are a formless, continuous stream of consciousness, made up of speeding thoughts, desires and images, we are polysexual, chaotic, ever changing and ambivalent to the core. But on the outside we seem like a more or less stable entity with composed and symmetrical features that betray almost nothing of what’s going on within.
(Video on Jacques Lacan, The School of Life, 2016)
My practice considers how the subjective experience of ‘being’ might be shared with another; not how we appear on the surface, but what it feels like to exist – living in and through a mind and body. Imagining ‘the self’ as a network of relationships in flux: fragmented, uncertain and complex.
The works map subconscious thoughts and feelings. Visualized through the interaction of colours and shapes. The emphasis is often on edges where colour planes meet, touch and overlap. Reflecting boundaries in human relationships. Compositions emerge from spontaneous action without pre-planning.
My process involves a daily encounter with materials – cotton, wood and paper – and tacit rules – such as ripping a sheet apart, painting the pieces and reconstructing it like a jigsaw puzzle; carving marks and painting the exposed wood; and gradually twisting colour threads to create organic, curving shapes against the grid of the loom.
Marks are about touch, made between intention and chance and often irreversible. The works hold both destruction and careful fixing. Joyful colours have an unsettling intensity. Complex tertiaries are juxtaposed with full chroma (brightness) primaries, exploring the relativity of colours – how they transform each another in harmony and discord.
I am based in London. I received an MA in Fine Art from City & Guilds of London Art School in 2018 and currently hold the position of Chair of Students / Trustee. Previously I undertook classes with the Royal Drawing School and New York Studio School. I run art and science educational workshops in primary schools, in collaboration with scientists from Cambridge University.
I changed career to be an artist in 2014, after an inspirational trip to Antarctica, where I’ve since returned as an artist-in-residence with One Ocean Expeditions. I’ve worked for 14 years in climate change and energy policy. Currently working on a freelance basis for an environmental think tank called Sustainability First leading a new project that combines art and sustainability.
Biography
Education
2017-18 MA Fine Art (Distinction), City & Guilds of London Art School
2015-17 Practicing Artist Concession Programme, Royal Drawing School, London
2005-06 MA Environment, Politics & Globalisation (Distinction), Kings College London
2000-03 BSc Geography (First Class Honours), Lancaster University
Exhibitions
2024 Waterlines with The Wilderness Art Collective, Royal Geographical Society, London (upcoming)
2024 Visual Arts Scotland Centenary Exhibition, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh (upcoming)
2024 Living Threads, The Dot Project, Oxford (solo show, upcoming)
2023 The Peace of Wild Things, The Violet Hour, online
2023 Changing Landscapes with The Wilderness Art Collective, Nine Elms Gallery, London
2022 Art on a Postcard - Winter Auction 2022
2022 Patternicity, ASC Gallery London
2022 Soft Times Gallery, San Francisco
2022 The Duchy, Arc Padstow, Cornwall
2022 The Artist Studio Sales, The Auction Collective
2021 Tracing Earth, Paintspaces Gallery, London
2021 Highgate Contemporary, London
2021 A glimpse of delight, Greatorex Street, London
2021 Felt Collection 01, Safehouse 1, Peckham, London
2021 The Colours of Life - Focus Art Fair curated by HongLee, Paris at Fold Gallery and Saatchi Gallery
2021 Top 100 with the Auction Collective
2021 From a safe distance with the Auction Collective
2021 Mindfulness with Visionary Projects, New York and Voss Gallery, San Francisco
2021 Green Fires with The Violet Hour
2020-1 Life on Venus with The Tub Hackney
2020 The Autumn Auction with the Auction Collective
2020 What she didn’t say at Thames Side Studios
2020 Wilderness for the Mind with the Wilderness Art Collective
2020 The birds are singing in the distant woods with the Violet Hour
2019 Human at Platform1 Gallery
2019 Carpet Pages II: Roots at The Art Pavilion Mile End, London
2019 MA Degree Show 2019 at City & Guilds of London Art School (as Fellow / Chair of Students)
2019 Shattered Visage at Unlimited House, London
2019 Extreme Imagination at the Tramway, Glasgow in January, moving to the Royal Albert Museum, Exeter in March.
2018 Shapes of Being at The Dot Project, London (solo exhibition)
2018 MA Degree Show 2018 at City & Guilds of London Art School
2017 In Dreams at the Menier Gallery, London
2017 Sketch at the Rabley Drawing Centre and regional tour
2016 Constructing Nature at Nolia’s Gallery, London
2016 Borders with Core Gallery at Nolia’s Gallery, London
2016 Money Matters at the British Museum
Publications and broadcasts
2020 ‘Weaving from the subconscious,’ interview for the Art Illuminated Podcast.
2017 'These are the things that dreams are made of', feature by Clare Dudeney in The i paper, 22 Sept , pp. 32-33
2017 'Dreams and art', interview for the Arrest All Mimics: The Creative Innovation Podcast.
Artist Residencies
2024 Sail Britain and the Wilderness Art Collective (upcoming)
2023 Sailing residency in South East Alaska
2022 Skye retreat with the Wilderness Art Collective
2021 Porthmeor Studios, Studio 5 - short let, St Ives, Cornwall
2021 Without Boundaries Sailing Residency with Visual Arts Scotland and Marchmont House
2019 Artist in residence at The Dot Project x Edition 94
2019 Antarctic Peninsula and Chilean Fjords with One Ocean Expeditions
2018 Antarctic Peninsula, Weddell Sea and Falkland Islands with One Ocean Expeditions
Commissions
2016 BP shipping centenary collection
Teaching
2016-current SunSpaceArt project running science and art educational workshops in schools, with Cambridge University, including outreach on Antarctica.