Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, in 1979
1998 – 2001 BA History: Goldsmiths College University of London
2002 – 2003 MA Cultural History: Goldsmiths College University of London
2008 – 2010 Foundation Fine Art: Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
2010 – 2012 BA Fine Art: Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
2012 – 2014 MA Fine Art: University of Brighton
STATEMENT
Current concerns of my artworks are absence and presence, misperception and the power of belief. I aim to make artworks that unnerve or amuse me, and my audience. If I am unnerved or amused, I get a sense others will be too.
Ideas tend to be conceived when memories of past experience merge with experiences in the present, in clear visual automatic thoughts. (Automatic thoughts are those that occur in the mind without a conscious process.) Then I think about which medium will work best and experiment with the form: video, sculpture, sound or text. Some ideas for artworks are drawn from everyday life and others are born of academic research. Stories about the provenance of the objects are often important.
Leonardo da Vinci’s aphorism that ‘Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication’ has influenced me. I aim to keep each artwork as bare and stark as possible, which may be connected to my family’s Presbyterian background. Louise Bourgeois said that ‘Art is a guarantee of sanity’. It can help to sort through what life throws at you—a form of sublimation that results in art objects.