Artist Biography

My work is influenced by my own childhood, moving between nine houses, three countries (England, West Germany and Kuwait) and three counties in the UK. Fragile memories are not always corroborated and there are places that I have never returned to. Occasionally visiting somewhere I left as a child as an adult changes perceptions and adds new layers of memory. A formative time in my life was as a third culture kid, living in the Middle East. I was exposed to people from all over the world, culture, art and the everyday, modern architecture and luxury sitting alongside falling down, ancient buildings and Bedouin camps. Patterns, shapes, colours, tiles and textiles all sticking to me. Travelling and working in South East Asia, as an adult, brought a renewed interest and appreciation of places, pattern, shape and colour.
Following an 18 year teaching career (working in Singapore, Cork, Ireland, Vienna, Austria, Norwich, Cambridge and Durham), I completed my fine art degree in 2014, my early experiments were defined and restricted by the pragmatics of making work without a studio, in a home with children. I found myself falling back on skills I had learned in my early twenties. Photography gave me a quick and space efficient way to start exploring some of my ideas. This is when I started to work in series, as a way of exploring and categorising. Alongside previous experiences as a child; of making toys, sewing and embroidery I began to explore making memory dolls reflecting personal events, a coat made from the skins of cuddly toys and flags. In 2015 I was commissioned by Artichoke to make three neon signs in my five year old's handwriting, responding to an 11th century text found in Durham Cathedral. On finally having a dedicated studio space in 2018, I decided to revisit earlier ideas and concentrate on working with paint and drawing.
My work has been recognised through several public commissions, an award of the Developing Your Creative Practice from Arts Council England, and a bursary from Contemporary Visual Arts Network and Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. I am co-artist in residence at Cresswell Pele Tower in Northumberland for the year 2023-2024 and I am a member of the Advisory Group for Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art(MIMA).