Artist Statement
Through my practice I aim to challenge perceptions, document and raise awareness of life in contemporary Britain. My work strives to create a somewhat democratic image, a representation of everyone’s lives, not just the few. Through this, I hope my art is beneficial.
My work responds to the social and political climate of today, reacting to issues surrounding class, national identity and traditions. I often use history, locality and landscape as motifs and visual metaphors to help conceptually realise ideas into complex mixed media installations, evoking an atmospheric resonance.
I am responsive to the changing mediation of imagery in the modern world, through print, sculpture, moving image and sound. I combine these medias in an installation format in order to reflect the excessive exhaustion of imagery in contemporary culture, with reference to the internet and screens. Materiality is another fundamental element in my practice. The appropriation of materials is often present in my work in order to conjure consciousness and contextual associations. Amongst my use of contemporary material, such as digital imagery, the handmade is essential. I am interested in exploring the importance of the hand-crafted artwork, and how analogue methods often have greater personality, a folk aesthetic. I often contrast the analogue with the digital, creating a hybridity of making. Through this, I challenge notions of what it means to be an artist today in an age of ultra- capitalism.
I continually use these methods in order to create socially and politically engaged art.