About Me
I live in Kent and have recently graduated from UCA Canterbury where I achieved a degree in Fine Art. Previously I spent many years working as a garden designer. This experience of immersion in design composition, dealing with space and enclosure, using formal considerations and working with nature, has provided a strong foundation for my artistic practice.
I am drawn to the melancholy of the deaths of small familiar creatures. The delicacy of the images speaks of a sensitivity to the pathos inherent in the natural cycle of life and death; the struggles of the living and the inevitability of their end. These “small passings” provide visual metaphors which invoke a universal dialogue about strength and vulnerability.
My visual language has developed through a consideration of intentionality. I examine fragility through the instability of the wet surface and its effects on the marks made. Blurring, dissolving, disintegration and softness, the unpredictability of natural forces and the disruption of the cohesion in the pigments, reinforce this vulnerability. Sharpness of line, depth of tone, intensity of pigment and an emphasis placed on the means of flight, express strength. In my paintings I attempt to capture the poignancy of fortitude: An act of will which carries an inevitable emotional cost.
In my work I examine the power in the dialogue between mark and space. The unpainted areas of the page speak of borderless, boundless sublimity, their emptiness breathing life and strength into the image. Reciprocally; the image energises those empty spaces. In all its morbid beauty, this work enters the arena of the sublime.
My Qualifications
2013
BA Hons. Fine Art, (Upper Second Class), UCA Canterbury