Art My work stems from an obsession with the ordinary and the unnoticed, looking for beauty in the everyday mundane. Collecting and collating words, images and artefacts forms the basis for sculptural and installation works. These are long-term ongoing projects that dictate their own form, or have no fixed form, shifting as they develop so that they might never be resolved in one ‘finished’ piece. Everyday materials – accessible materials like paper and thread, found fabrics, ephemera, form the core of my making - combined with existing objects, photography and drawing. The focus is on my own familiar, the urban environment that I inhabit. Domesticity is a recurring theme; examining the repetitions and routine of the quotidian. I relish the development of arcane skills, committing hundreds of hours of work to an object or an idea.
Walk walking as a necessity, routine walks, getting places without spending any money, walking as a freedom, as a subversive practice, and as a visual art practice. As a member of walkwalkwalk I have become a walking artist, exploring and developing a practice that begins with a re-examination of the places that you think are familiar - a kind of anti-derive. Walks become live art events, site specific performances and research method for developing text, installation, film, audio and performance works. walkwalkwalk are founding members of the walking artists network
Materials for seven years I worked as a university materials librarian, developing a broad knowledge base of materials, components, processes and finishes - and how to source them. I now work on a freelance basis for artists, architects, designers, and makers helping them to source, organise and research materials for a range of projects. I'm interested in the meaning of materials, both in relation to fine art practice and in terms of product, interior and architectural design, and in processes of learning/understanding/inspiration that relate to the physical manipulation of materials - a sensorial approach to materials selection.
Teaching I'm a course tutor on the art and design foundation programme at London Metropolitan University teaching a wide range of projects and providing tutorial support. I also work within the design subject area at London Met teaching on BA and MA projects that relate both to my art pratice and my materials experience.
I'm a 0.5 lecturer in the Institute for Performing Arts Development at the University of East London, where my teaching links strongly to my walking art practice, working on modules that forefront interdisciplinarity, participation and site specificity.