About

I am 22 years old and have just graduated from Coventry University with an Upper Second Class BA Degree in Fine Art. As far as my progression as an artist is concerned I consider myself to be in an important and defining pause in my development. I am refining and informing my ideas with the hope of continuing further on the not so distant horizon.

The work I am currently producing amalgamates my interest in the representation of life and death and what it means to exist in this world. My visual vocabulary is gleaned from varied sources ranging from Renaissance woodcuts about the Danse Macabre, to the image bombardment we are subjected to on a daily basis from the media; the beautiful and horrifying amalgamated into a glossy dose of apparent reality ready for our consumption.

The process by which I achieve my surface finishes is relatively organic; my development of mixed media techniques has been furthered by gaining an understanding of the prejudices of ‘high and low’ art. The main materials I employ besides acrylic paint and glass spray paint are collaged elements, glitter and gems which are intended to reference back to more decadent days. The combination of glossy, seductive, and sparkling elements along with the macabre skeletons and germs is intended to produce an image that is simultaneously attractive and repulsing. The appropriation of old woodcuts depicting age old questions about humanity seem ever more potent in the age of the pixel and the act of appropriating them into my work seems like a just reflection of how society consumes the old and regurgitates it with a different agenda.

My latest endeavours have focussed more specifically on appropriating patterns from nature alongside my own themes. I have been studying magnified images of microscopic cells and organisms to begin to build up complex compositions formed from the basic cells that shape our existence. I hope to start charging my work with the philosophical conundrums that face mankind, the works and concepts of Dawkins, Wittgenstein and Plato have had an impact (more subconscious up until recently) on my reasoning.

My ideas are underpinned by a love for punk rock music, layers of melodies and choruses of questioning amalgamated into a chaotic epiphany. I have been deeply influenced by artists associated with the pop art movement, both original and contemporary, and artists associated with the newly coined ‘Neo-baroque’ genre, which simultaneously blends the opulence of days gone by with issues of the 21st century, an offshoot of the notorious post-modern dilemma.