Artist Statement

My practice is grounded in a deep and enduring connection to the natural world. I explore the entanglements between emotion and landscape, asking what it means for things—objects, places and memories to exist within a constantly shifting environment.

I am currently examining land reclamation, where I focus on the transformed terrains of the East Anglian fens, and the fragile, eroding Norfolk coastline. These landscapes, profoundly altered by human intervention, carry traces of both ecological disruption and personal resonance. They act as emotional cartographies, mapping experiences of joy, grief, control, and loss.

 

I consider how power and patriarchy have shaped not only the land but also the narratives we construct about it—and about ourselves. Reclaimed and eroded spaces serve as metaphors for challenging the controlling behaviours that have marked both the environment and my lived experience. I look to these liminal, unsettled geographies to imagine alternative ways of being, thinking, and relating.

 

I am interested in the possibility that ancient knowledge remains embedded within the land, waiting to be unearthed. Silty residues in ploughed fen fields and ghost rivers—still visible via satellite—suggest histories that resist erasure. I listen for voices from the past and ask whether, through my work, I can reconcile personal memory with collective history. My process begins in the field: walking, writing, photographing, and sketching in response to fleeting shifts in light and energy. These sensory encounters inform larger works in the studio, where the process of ‘thinking through making’ becomes central.

 

Materiality and gesture are integral to my practice, as emotions are embodied through my movements, working with and against the surface. I layer, scrape back, erase, and rebuild, allowing ideas to emerge gradually through on ongoing physical dialogue with the work. The paintings unfold intuitively, revealing ambiguous spatial relationships that invite both microscopic and aerial readings. This iterative method embraces uncertainty; I aim to let materials behave with their own agency, encouraging their natural tendencies rather than imposing rigid control.

 

Thematically, my work is informed by object-oriented ontology, ecological theory, and feminist philosophy. Works by Jane Bennett, Tim Morton, and Gilles Deleuze influence my understanding of the nonhuman and the interconnectedness of all things. I am concerned with the Anthropocene—not only as a climate reality but as a psychological condition—and I am drawn to the speculative, the ephemeral, and the unseen.

 

Ultimately, I aim to imagine what might become possible if we relinquished the need for dominance—over land, over nature, and over one another.