I have been a draftswoman with sculptural leanings my entire life. With the exception of an extraordinary high school art teacher I am mostly self-taught. My higher education was exclusively focused on Art History and, in 2005, I graduated with a first class Master of Arts degree in Art History from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. There I focused on both Eastern European and British art between 1850 and 1940, though I simultaneously developed a deep artistic appreciation for the principles and mathematical proportions of the Renaissance and Classicism.

What is my philosophy?

My philosophy of art hinges around nostalgia. Aesthetically I try to find a tension between the beauty of composition and the play between forms. Many of my drawings act as collages. I try to recombine elements in a way that divorces them from their original definition in the real world and forces them to adopt new roles that are formed purely by their shape and evocation within the composition. This technique generates vital tension as the mind rapidly reinvents, a tension that I believe breathes life into still images.

What am I saying?

Narrative is very important for me within every image; however, I believe each drawing holds a unique role for each individual who views it. To look at an image is to claim it in the mind. What I hope to acheive in my drawings is to speak to certain sensations that are only touchable through a visual vocabulary.

I try to depict people playing at a collective history that they can feel in their core, but was gone before they were ever born. This beautiful sadness gives meaning to human progress. I try to construct elegant images that portray all people as sagacious children playing games of the past while simultaneously moving into the future in a world that is new to them; subjects existing despite constantly staring inwards or backwards. It is my ambition to truly involve the viewer in the raw eeriness and humour that accompanies a child’s new world.

I want this unique beauty and strangeness above all else.
I view all art objects like puppets: playful, slightly sinister and infinitely knowing.

Why am I an artist, why pencil?

I am artist simply because visual communication has always been my mother tongue. I have been a draftswoman with sculptural leanings my entire life, since the first sand drawing I scribbled at age 12 months to the last pencils I am able to hold. I work in drawing both because I find the simple of grey tonal scale evocative and because I value the precise handling of a pencil. I love rendering form and line, allowing the subject to dissolve in pencil strokes or be built up like a Victorian glass palace, sheets of shading laid upon crisscrossing skeletons of graphite garters. It is a pleasure watching life sparked into values of light and dark that I have savoured all my life.