Biography
Since graduating from Chelsea College of Art and Design in 1998, I have continued to develop my work with occasional exhibitions alongside employment in the social care sector. I have also continued to life model in the various places I’ve lived in England and Scotland; I see this as part of my art practice, a maintaining of the performative, the immediacy of naked gendered practice. The model’s gaze returned as a light-hearted but heart-felt challenge to the patriarchal devices of art history. It’s good fun too.
My focus has been on continuing to develop my studio practice and creating a coherent body of work. I moved to Orkney in 2007 and spent a year in Shetland 2010-2011, living in the islands has impacted on my work with an increasing interest in theories of landscape, particularly in terms of identity formation.
In 2010 I started a MSc Interpretation with the University of the Highlands and Islands which has enabled an exploration of the ways in which the natural and cultural landscape is interpreted. It has also prompted some interesting exploration of the interpretive function of the artist in residence in terms of community-focused projects. I'm due to start my dissertation in September 2012 and at the moment I’m contemplating my research question.
I am currently working as a Museum Assistant at The Pier Arts Centre in Stromness in a year-long post. It’s a fantastic opportunity to be actively involved in many aspects of running a world-class art museum and contemporary art gallery. Being in such a stimulating environment, surrounded by art and artists, is also inspiring a renewed focus on my own practice and a desire to reach-out and engage more firmly with the art world; to somehow emerge more forcefully than I have to date. Producing this website is part of this process.
Education
1994–1998 BA (Hons) Fine Art, 2:1 – Chelsea College of Art and Design
1990–1991 BTEC Foundation Art and Design – Mid Warks FE College, Warwick
Exhibitions
- Pier Art Centre, Stromness, Winter Open, 2011
- Pier Art Centre, Stromness, Winter Open, 2009
- Waterfront Gallery, Stromness, Group Exhibition, 2009
- The Sorting Room, Stromness, Summer Exhibition, 2008
- Pier Art Centre, Stromness, Winter Open, 2007
- Scottish Trade Fair, SECC, 2008
- Clackmannan College, Alloa: “Gaze” (performance), 2002
- Keighley Art Factory, West Yorkshire: Ceramics, 2001
- Keighley Art Factory, West Yorkshire; Annual Open Exhibition, 2001
- Lambeth Community Care Centre, London: “Local”, 2000
- Chelsea College of Art and Design, London: Graduate Exhibition, 1998
Work Experience
Museum Assistant at The Pier Arts Centre. Supporting the management team in running the gallery, exhibition planning and hanging, front of house interaction with visitors.
Founding director of temporary community arts space in Stromness – The Sorting Room - with a lead role in managing the project and providing support to emerging artists and craftspeople. 2008–2009
Puppet making project with Fife Community Services. Series of workshops alongside service users with learning disabilities. 2006 click for more info
Lambeth Community Care Team. Providing therapeutic one to one art sessions for people with neurological disabilities. 2000-2002
Worked alongside woman stroke survivor to produce a video about living with aphasia. 2001
Lambeth Community Care Centre and Whittington Centre. Running art, craft and poetry groups with older people and people with physical and learning disabilities. 1997-2000
