Artist statement
Many of my installations, embroidery pieces, drawings and photographs have been triggered by domestic objects, fabrics and family photographs that recall a previous time and moment. I am interested in memory, home, temporality and the real and the imagined.
My practice focuses on the use of domestic objects and inscribed images that are suggestive of longing, escape and melancholy. Landscape, place and home are experienced through objects and materials such as wallpaper, curtains and furniture coverings.
I have taken part in three very different residencies in different parts of the world, encountering new ways to make work but also re-adjust and think more widely about my practice. I have used different materials and ways of presenting pertinent to each location and time.
Working in Prague I developed a series of pieces in response to a nearby chalet and holiday homes whilst responding to the feeling of alienation and dislocation I felt living in an East European country during wintertime.
My residency with Brazier’s International Artist’s Workshop allowed me to work in a dilapidated Coach House with a defunct sewing machine with holes in the ceiling where bats lived. I responded to this space by collecting hundreds of thistle down flowers, which I hand-stitched together. They were placed heaped on an old found chair and hung out of the holes in the ceiling. Over the course of two weeks the flowers slowly began to separate and, clustered all around the space, they quietly highlighted different aspects of the site and worked as a way of reflecting passage of time and the history of the space.
With ‘Aftershave’ workshop in Nigeria I had to leave early due to factional violence but recovered a discarded piece of basket on the floor of a market that I have used to create large scale drawings that reflect Nigerian fabric patterns, the landscape and intensity of that time.
Qualifications and training
- 2004 MA Fine Art, Central St Martin's College of Art and Design, London
Solo exhibitions
- 2010 Terrain, Rodhus Gallery, Brighton
Group exhibitions
- 2010 Unravelling the Manor House, Preston Manor, Brighton
- 2010 Dream Home, Phoenix Brighton Gallery, Brighton
- 2008 That's Entertainment-curated by Cathy Lomax, Whitstable Biennale, Whistable
- 2008 Comfort Zones, Bury St Edmunds Gallery, Bury St Edmunds
- 2008 Comfort Zones, Quay Arts, Isle of Wight
- 2007 Comfort Zones, James Hockey and Foyer Galleries, Farnham, Surrey (more info)
- 2007 Comfort Zones, Tullie House, Carlisle
- 2007 Comfort Zones, Oriel Davies Gallery, Newtown, Wales
- 2006 Drawing Room, Phoenix Gallery, Phoenix Arts Association, Brighton
- 2006 City Running, Phoenix Gallery, Brighton
- 2005 April 6th-May 16th 2005, What Happens When Everything Is Reduced to Ones and Zeros, Pearlfisher Gallery, London
- 2005 The Jerwood Drawing Prize 2005, Jerwood Space, and touring to other venues in the UK, London
- 2005 Sussex Open 2005 'Words-Imagination, Fantasy and Tales', Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, Brighton
- 2004 Perspective 2004, Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast
- 2004 The Inscriptive Ferrett, Space 44, Fish Island, London
- 2003 ‘artinheaven’ The Meeting House, Sussex University, Brighton Fringe Festival May
- 2003 ‘Here’ The Lethaby Gallery, Southampton Row, London April
- 2002 The Haven, Pheonix Gallery, Brighton
- 2001 Us and Them, axisartists.org.uk/exhibitions
- 2001 Collective Pulse, Orleans House, Stables Gallery, Twickenham
- 2001 Gallery 100, Queens Road, Brighton
- 2000 TW7, Redlees Arts and Crafts Stables, Isleworth, West London
- 1998 16 New Artists, The Tannery, Bermondsey, London
- 1997 Instalce, Galerie Aspekt, Brno, Czech Republic
Artist talks
- 2009 Coastal Currents, Claremont Studios, Hastings
- 2009 Phoenix Studio Tours 2009, Phoenix Brighton, Brighton (more info)
Residencies
- 2008 Aftershave International Artist's Workshop, Yankari Games Reserve, Nigeria
- 2007 Braziers International Artist's Workshop, Braziers Park, Oxfordshire
- 2005 Exchange, Arts Institute, Theatre Institute, Prague, Prague
Competitions, prizes and awards
- 2008 Arts Council Individual Award, Arts Council, UK
- 2004 Shorlisted for newcontemporaries
- 2004 Individual Award, Arts Council
Site specific
- 2010 Unravelling the Manor, Preston Manor, Brighton
Web links - gallery/work/projects
