I am interested in the strange and the familiar, in past and present and the juxtaposition of contrary visual languages. Experimentation, mark making and working with the process of how paint behaves is combined with sections of classical paintings often featuring cloth and material which speak to the body and sites of abjection, whilst the insertion of collaged fragments speaks to fracture, splits and duality. Specifically, I am currently researching the work of Artemisia Gentileschi and quoting from her paintings of women martyrs and heroines such as Judith from the narrative of Judith and Holofernes. I am also inspired by the poetry and journals of Sylvia Plath, in the tension between the sublime and the violent and the way that words ignite the imagination. My paintings aim to be a kind of psychological bricolage where different elements sit together, sometimes uneasily and speak to the connection of woman to ‘anima’ the soul of the world and to nature; sometimes pastoral, sometimes violent. I am interested in conveying something of the ‘unheimlich’ in the everyday.
My work as a Psychotherapist working with conscious and unconscious material, history, narrative, dreams and symbolic imaginal realsms informs my artistic practice.
Education
2002-2009 BA Hons Fine Art (First), University College Falmouth, Cornwall
2013 BathSpa University Postgraduate Certificate in Fine Art
2014/15, 2017 Turps Correspondence – Mentored Painting Course
Awards
2010 National Open Art Competition South West Regional Prize
Exhibitions
2020 ‘Beating Time’, ARB Cambridge
2019 ‘Elemental’, Tremenheere Art Gallery, Penzance
2018 Wells Art Contemporary Open, Selected
2017 NSA Critic’s Choice selected by art critic Nicholas Usherwood, Penzance
2017 Newlyn Society of Artists ‘Borders’ Tremenheere Gallery, Penzance, Selected
2017 Pay and Display, Centrespace Gallery, Bristol, Selected
2016 The Dark Arts – Candid Arts Trust, Islington London, Selected
2016 ‘Correspond’ Artspace Halifax, Rye Creative Centre and IR11 Gallery, Edinburgh
2015 All wrapped Up, Newlyn Society of Artists, Salthouse Gallery St Ives, Selected
2015 ‘Are we almost at a place’, 44ad Gallery, Bath
2015 NSA 293, Newlyn Society of Artists, Penwith Gallery, St Ives, Selected
2014 Wells Art Contemporary Open, Selected
2012 Zeitgist Arts Open, London, Selected
2010 Amiri Prize, National Open Art Competition Chichester, Selected
2010 Silent Signals, St Ives
2010 A Strange Country, The Crypt Gallery, St Ives
2009 National Open Art Competition, Chichester, Selected
2009 Subversive Figures, St Ives Cornwall
2007 Spontaneous Combustion, Cornwall