Artist statement
In all my work I seek an engagement with landscape and history. This is concerned not so much with nature or topography as with the way that places operate as an archive of human activity and memory. For me the paradigm is the buried object, the processes by which the traces of human presence are successively covered up, and the possibilities of what might exist under the ground, waiting to be found as layer by layer is uncovered.
As my work has developed I have increasingly exploited minimal form and repetition as a way of achieving visual complexity. The forms I use often resemble rusted and broken machine parts - material retrieved from the land, but not of it. There is an inherent economy to landscape forms, whether they be the product of natural or human processes. I have found patterns for the forms I use in, for example, a network of marshland creeks, the meander of a river and a decaying quayside. From such features I might abstract something as simple as an octagon or an arc which, when used in multiples and layers, can be built up into complex structures. Processes of this sort, I think, characterise the structures of the natural world, but also explore the mental structures that make the world intelligible.
In some of my more recent work I have explored ideas about scale and representation through miniatures and dioramas, and these have permitted me to address the possibility of the fictive place and the imagined landscape.
Solo exhibitions
- 2008 Atlantis, Crypt Gallery, Seaford
- 2007 The Heart is Another Country, 20/21 Visual Arts Centre, Scunthorpe
- 2006 Julian Rowe, Weekend Gallery, Hastings, E Sussex
- 2006 The Broken Love of Doctor Browne, Rochester Art Gallery, Rochester
- 2005 Quiet Land, Rochester Art Gallery, Rochester
- 2005 The Raft, Meopham Library Gallery, Meopham
- 2005 The Broken Love of Doctor Browne, Hastings Museum and Art Gallery, Hastings
- 2004 Standing by Water, Crypt Gallery, Seaford
- 2004 Art in SEEDA, South East England Development Agency, Chatham
- 2002 Curlew, Maidstone Library Gallery
- 2002 Irnen, Weald Gallery, Cranbrook, Kent
- 2000 How exquisitely the world is fitted to the mind, Otter Gallery, Chichester
- 1999 After the Chinese, Trinity Arts Centre Gallery, Turnbridge Wells
- 1998 Groundwork, Library Gallery, Sevenoaks
Group exhibitions
- 2008 Quay Arts Open, Quay Arts Centre, Newport
- 2008 Artvaults 2008, A-Space, Southampton
- 2007 ko-ax: Kent Open Art Exhibition, Mascalls Gallery, Paddock Wood
- 2007 Artists' Books, Border's Bookshop, Cambridge
- 2006 First Class Post, Sassoon Gallery, Folkestone
- 2006 Salon des Fables, Cour des Arts, Saint-Emilion, France (more info)
- 2005 Artvaults, A-Space, Southampton
- 2004 The Garden of Earthly Delights, Brockwell Park, Brixton
- 2003 Art in Romney Marsh, SS Peter and Paul Church, Dymchurch
- 2002 Conjured Moments: Detached Fragments, Crypt Gallery, Seaford
- 2001 Chichester Open
- 2001 Summer 2001, Galeria D'Art Zero, Barcelona, Spain
- 2001 Experimental Spaces, Hastings Museum
- 2000 2000: A Rite of Passage?, Ramsgate Library Gallery
- 2000 Summer Exhibition, Headcorn Gallery, Headcorn
- 2000 Mayfield Festival, Mayfield
- 2000 Groundwork, Phoenix Gallery, Brighton
- 1999 Arthou2e, Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery
- 1999 1ère Biennale de la Sculpture du Pays de Bray, Neufchâtel-en-Bray, France
- 1998 Peterborough Arthouse
- 1998 New Life, Holm Oaks Gallery, Deal
Residencies
- 2005 Cill Rialaig Project, Cill Rialaig, County Kerry, Ireland
- 2003 ES2003, Hastings Museum & Art Gallery, Hastings
- 2001 Experimental Spaces, Hastings Museum & Art Gallery, Hastings
- 2000 Gold Dust Spring (joint project with Dawn Badland), Chiddingstone Castle, Chiddingstone, Edenbridge, Kent
Public commissions
- 2006 My Tunbridge Wells, Tunbridge Wells Museum and Art Gallery, Tunbridge Wells, Kent (more info)
- 2006 In Libris, East Sussex Libraries, Bexhill, Battle and Rye, E Sussex (more info)
- 2005 Hieronymus Bosch Takes Tea in Dunorlan Park, Tunbridge Wells Museum, Tunbridge Wells
- 2004 Alauda courtyard sculpture, Kent Count Council - Charing Library, Charing, Kent
- 2002 Museum Pieces (joint project with Dawn Badland), Tunbridge Wells Museum, Tunbridge Wells
- 2001 In Libris (joint project with Dawn Badland), Kent County Council - Cranbrook Library, Cranbrook
- 2000 Five books complementing FRAC exhibition, Kent County Council, Sevenoaks
- 1999 Swanley Omnibus sculpture, Swanley Library, Swanley
Personal website
