About
The inspiration for my work is the combination of the rural English landscape and digital communication. I work between London and the Cotswolds with a background in graphic design and software development. I live in a place with family ancestry stretching back to the sixteenth century. This strong sense of locality is in contrast to the globalising effect of digital technology – with its outcomes that are both alienating and civilising. My interest is in how these forces can be represented using traditional craft techniques, such as letterpress printing and woodwork, to create a visual language that gives insight into our movement towards constant connectedness, data-driven reality and the strangeness of quantum mechanics. It is an enquiry into how our relationship with place is being shaped by the evolving experience of a disembodied self.
Central to this is an interest in the underlying processes of visual communication, language and digital technology. Our restless pursuit to create a global community with online social platforms brings great poignancy to what we consider authentic, and it creates within the chimera of messages, faces and feelings a kaleidoscopic truth of its own. The mathematical structures underpinning this technological transformation are as old as the stars and perhaps have the same power in an image sharing app as they do in the ancient pyramids. An inspiration in this regard is Stanley Kubrick's film, 2001, where the recurring geometric monolith expresses the mystery of our existence as we build towards our destination, from cavemen to space travellers and beyond.
My work attempts to examine the role of the imagination – the pursuit of personal identity within the digital otherworld and how our creative gestures, set against the tide of globalisation, are perhaps a substitute for power as much as they celebrate the liberation of finding a like-minded global audience. It sets out to question whether handmade paper, printing ink and metal type creates anything more or less substantial than the internet.
Education
1996 Edinburgh College of Art: Foundation in Art and Design
1998-2001 Bath School of Art and Design: Graphic Design BA (hons) 1st Class
Exhibitions
1997 Present. Spoonbed Studio, Gloucestershire. Curated by Colin Glen
2001 Burn. London. Graduate show
2012, 2013, 2014 Site Festival Open Studios. SVA, Stroud, Gloucestershire
2014 Ultra Modern. SVA, Gloucestershire
2015 Your Beating Heart. Gloucestershire
2015 10A Prints. Gloucestershire
Collections
Vong Phaophanit and Clare Obousier
Artist Services and Collaborations (Graphic Design and Digital Marketing)
Damien Hirst (Science), Simon Ryder, Charles Cecil MBE, Isabella Blow, Colin Glen, Louisa Fairclough / Danielle Arnaud, Bermingham and Robinson, Richard Jackson and Sally Fawkes, Quercus, SVA, Ben Goldacre MBE, The Barn Theatre, Arnolfini Bristol, Bristol NHS Trust Arts Programme, Hilles House, Whittington Press.