Statement of Practice
In my practice I experiment with form, texture and the haptic. Important aspects of my work are curiosity and experimentation. I am curious about what can be achieved with the materials I use and I like to explore different techniques to see what effects can be achieved. I use drawing and print to observe and abstract natural forms and the human figure. These drawings inspire my sculptural work. With sculpture I can push the themes I am interested in. It can be a form of haptic communication. “The Eyes of the Skin” by Juhani Pallasmaa has informed my work. I would like to make work that can be encountered, touched and understood by more than the eye. Pallasmaa writes that the world has become a “meaningless visual journey…” we are detached from images, and we experience them as a “mesmerising flow without focus or participation.” Art can stimulate the senses and allow us to feel a connection.
I often create work that I find cathartic, there is a rhythm and a movement to creating art that can be meditative. When the hand and the eye and the materiality are connected then art feels like a ritualistic act.
My work is deeply personal to my own experience, but the themes are universal. I am instinctively drawn to identity, memory and place. I often feel that these influences pull me in different directions, and I like to examine the tension found in these contrasts: strength and vulnerability, masculine and feminine, figurative and abstract, light and dark, hidden and exposed, natural and man-made, uncanny and homely.
I feel a sense of the uncanny and the homely when using second hand clothes, household objects or found items in my work. These materials whisper their own metaphors and connotations; the meanings merge within the artwork and forms emerge that are new and distorted. The shapes of the forms are important to me. I do not want to impose any specific narrative or figurative traits onto them. They stay somewhere uncanny, alluding to something human but not quite.
Curriculum Vitae
I am a third year Fine Art degree student. I have taught un-certificated evening classes in drawing and painting skills; run workshops in watercolour techniques and taken part in exhibitions (listed below). I illustrated work in a project called Whalsay Waves produced by the Shetland Arts. An article entitled “Exposed Roots” featuring my work was printed in the Shetland Life magazine. As well as raising my family, painting and writing, my part time jobs include care taker at the Hanseatic Booth Museum and Youth Worker at the Livister youth club. Before having children I worked full time in the Shetland Times bookshop. I am a keen reader and I am interested in writing. I have completed two creative writing classes in 2009 and several of my poems have been published.
Bonhoga Group Exhibition - Lipperin - April 2022
Jamieson and Smith Competition Prize - August 2021
Reconsider Wool Exhibition - September 28th 2019 - October 2019
Bonhoga Open Exhibition - September 2019 - November 2019
Wool Week Exhibition Prize - June 2019
20x20 Exhibition - June 2019
Vision 19 Exhibition - June 2019
Whalsay watercolour workshops - July 2018
Aairvhous Cafe Exhibition - June 2018 - July 2018
Whalsay Heritage and Community Centre painting commission - June 2018
Poem “The Artist” published in My Time poetry book - March 2018
Bonhoga Open Exhibition - September 2017- November 2017
‘Recycled’ art project at the Whalsay school - June 2017
Interactive stories map commission for Whalsay Heritage and Community Centre - April 2017
Whalsay Play Park wall panel commission - May 2016
Brae Up Helly Aa 'Bill Head' commission - March 2016
Article ‘Exposed Roots’ in “Shetland Life” magazine – April 2011
Tutor of drawing classes - March - June 2011
Bonhoga Touring exhibition – January 2009 - February 2010
Poem "Da Hill" published in "Bards in the Bog" book - October 2009
Creative Writing 1 and 2 - August 2009
Da Gadderie group exhibition – December 13th 2008- January 3rd 2009
Visual Studies module in Contemporary Textiles degree - 2008
NC Art and Design - 2007
Illustrated Story in "Whalsay Waves" project - August 2004
HND Social Sciences – Aberdeen College - 2001
Da Peerie Shop group Exhibition- September 1999
Poem "Walking By" published in The New Shetlander magazine - 1998