Background

I grew up in a working-class family in northeast England and first studied sculpture at Manchester Polytechnic in the 1980s. After training as an art therapist and group analyst, I returned to painting through an MA at City & Guilds of London Art School (2016) and, more recently, the Turps Studio Programme.
These experiences continue to shape how I think about painting — not only as a visual practice but as a way of understanding and communicating emotional and cultural meaning.

Practice

My work explores how painting can be both sensory and reflective — something that is felt as much as seen. Through layered and fluid applications of oil paint, I examine how bodies endure struggle, and how painting can act as a form of resistance: a way to rewrite old stories and open new spaces for meaning.

Research and Approach

I draw from myth, cartoon and protest imagery, organic life and landscape, combining these with ideas from contemporary philosophy. Material experimentation and figural elements merge to form open, transformative spaces — inviting reflection on loss, resilience, and the politics of memory.

Recent Work

My recent solo exhibition at Both Gallery, London, brought these ideas together through a series of paintings exploring endurance, resistance, and transformation. Each work invites the viewer into a shifting, sensory experience — one that engages both the body and the imagination.

Group Shows: 

Why Am I So Hot?, 2025. Both Gallery London

Ripe Bananas, 2023. Turps Gallery London

Overspill, 2022.  Terrace Gallery London

Beep Painting Biennial, 2022. Elysium Gallery Swansea

Medium Rare, 2021. Bermondsey Project Space London.

Exceptional, 2017. Collyer Bristow Gallery London

MA and other Post graduates, 2017. Atkinson Gallery Millfield

Futures, 2017. The Mall Gallery London.

MA graduate Show, 2016. City and Guilds of London