[vc_row equal_height=”yes”][vc_column css=”.vc_custom_1648717867490{background-color: #ffffff !important;}” offset=”vc_col-lg-offset-0 vc_col-lg-12 vc_col-md-offset-0 vc_col-md-12 vc_col-sm-offset-0 vc_col-xs-12″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1648717788332{margin-bottom: 25px !important;border-top-width: 10px !important;border-right-width: 5px !important;border-bottom-width: 15px !important;border-left-width: 15px !important;padding-top: 2px !important;padding-right: 2px !important;padding-bottom: 2px !important;padding-left: 2px !important;background-color: #e5e5e5 !important;border-left-color: #e5e5e5 !important;border-left-style: solid !important;border-right-color: #e5e5e5 !important;border-right-style: solid !important;border-top-color: #e5e5e5 !important;border-top-style: solid !important;border-bottom-color: #e5e5e5 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;border-radius: 5px !important;}”]I am a London-based artist with roots in north-west England. I use photography, written texts and audio to document social history, specifically the transformation over time of industries, communities and the environment.
My work incorporates old and new processes: images captured with a digital camera emerge as photogravures*, using a long-established printmaking technique that has been revived thanks in part to the advent of digital technologies. I juxtapose these photogravures with verbatim accounts or factual information presented as textual or acoustic overlays.
I have received Arts Council England funding for several creative ventures. Other Side of the Line, 2015, arose from an extensive period investigating the repercussions of the 1984 – 85 miners’ strike. The strike marked a seismic shift in the UK’s industrial and economic landscape and has great personal significance for me: my grandfather and father were both miners at the start of the dispute and based in Flintshire, Wales and Yorkshire, England respectively. Conceived for the 30th anniversary of the strike’s end, Other Side of the Line focuses on men who crossed picket lines to return to work early believing their cause was lost. A second grant enabled me to turn my lens on the women of the strike, documenting their roles in this apparently male-dominated struggle for a decent wage. In Pit House to Politics, the participants describe their political awakening, which saw them move from the kitchen to the picket line, and subsequently to lives of activism in support of other causes.
Counting on the Planet, which is also ACE funded, marks a new creative departure. In this project I move away from personal narratives in favour of statistical information expressed in novel ways. It is presented as short texts superimposed over photogravures. By overlaying visually arresting images with statistics about environmental destruction, I aim to confront viewers with unpalatable facts through easy-to-understand analogies.
The prints in Counting on our Planet feature ink I made with soot from local chimneys. This ink allows me to orchestrate a new life cycle. Soot (a residue from burning coal formed of decaying wood over millions of years), when transferred from photogravure plate to printing paper (which also originates from wood), returns to its origins.
*Photogravures, or ‘photopolymers’, are created by exposing thin, light-sensitive polymer-coated metal plates and printed transparencies to ultraviolet light. The ultraviolet light damages the polymer in a controlled way, resulting in an etched surface that can be inked and put through a printing press.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1644272803105{border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 5px !important;border-bottom-width: 15px !important;border-left-width: 15px !important;background-color: #e5e5e5 !important;border-left-color: #e5e5e5 !important;border-left-style: solid !important;border-right-color: #e5e5e5 !important;border-right-style: solid !important;border-top-color: #e5e5e5 !important;border-top-style: solid !important;border-bottom-color: #e5e5e5 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;border-radius: 5px !important;}”]
Group Shows
2022
Artcan Wintershow, Kinggate Project space London
2021
Festival of Print, Mile End Pavilion
Prelude, Artcan online
2020
The Parents Artist, AGIP, London
Life interrupted, online, www.seasbrighton.org/life-interrupted
2019
209 Women, Openeye Gallery, Liverpool
2018
209 Women, Houses of Parliament, London
Photography changes everything, Photo Fringe, Brighton
Because we can!, Festival Pil’ours, France
Girls Town, Alfred Cooperative Institute for Art and Culture, Tel Aviv, Israel
2017
Festival of Print, the Art Pavilion, London
LCN Salon 17, Four Corner gallery, London
RA Summer Show, London
2016
Girl Town, St. Margaret’s House, London
Salon des Refusés, Space Gallery, London
Get Living London art tour, Athletes Village, London
2015
Salon 2015, Photo fusion Gallery, London
Portrait Salon, London
Open House East Dulwich, London
Get Living London art tour, Athletes Village, London
2014
Salon 2014, Photo fusion, London
Edition III, Photo Month, Curious Duke Gallery, London
2012
Edition II, Photo Month, Printspace London
2011
Places and things, Rooftop Collective exhibition, The Rooftop Gallery, London[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1611257938973{border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 5px !important;border-bottom-width: 15px !important;border-left-width: 15px !important;background-color: #e5e5e5 !important;border-left-color: #e5e5e5 !important;border-left-style: solid !important;border-right-color: #e5e5e5 !important;border-right-style: solid !important;border-top-color: #e5e5e5 !important;border-top-style: solid !important;border-bottom-color: #e5e5e5 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;border-radius: 5px !important;}”]
Solo Shows
2018
Pit House To Politics, Four Corners Gallery, London
2015
Other side of the Line, Surface Gallery, Nottingham
2011
Concrete Love, Modern Pantry, London[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1644274388883{border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 5px !important;border-bottom-width: 15px !important;border-left-width: 15px !important;background-color: #e5e5e5 !important;border-left-color: #e5e5e5 !important;border-left-style: solid !important;border-right-color: #e5e5e5 !important;border-right-style: solid !important;border-top-color: #e5e5e5 !important;border-top-style: solid !important;border-bottom-color: #e5e5e5 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;border-radius: 5px !important;}”]
Collections
Covid Cronicles – Bristish Library
209 Women – Parliament Collection, London
TMK120384Bersham – Scarborough Museum
Grants, Awards and Competitions
Arts Council funded Counting on the Planet (current body of work)
Shortlisted for RA Summer Exhibition 2019
Arts Council funded Pit House to Politics 2018
Selected for RA Summer Exhibition 2017
Photofusion SALON/15, Alternative Process Award
Arts Council funded ‘Other side of the Line’ 2015
Publication
Hmmm… Photography and printmaking, curated by Somewhere in Between 2021
Printmaking today, volume 27 number 1 Spring 2018
Printfairs
Woolwich 2021[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]