Education & Career

After graduating in Fine Art from Falmouth University in 2009, I started work in hospitality and my dedication to this career left little time for art.

In 2019, I opened a specialty coffee shop in Frome, a year later the pandemic forced businesses to temporarily close and with it an opportunity to paint. In 2024, following illness, I closed the shop and fully committed to life as an artist. 

About me

At age 5, I was diagnosed with cancer - an experience that made me acutely aware of mortality and helped me affirm life as it is, even when it is uncomfortable. While in hospital I found refuge in music and art therapy, it helped me to understand the thoughts and feelings I could not articulate and opened up a way to experience the world beyond the body as infinite and creative. 

Back at school, I struggled with education, I was more interested in using my imagination and daydreaming. William Blake’s eloquent words summarise what I am unable to: “If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.”

About my work

I work with acrylic paint on canvas, often inspired by music or literature. My paintings explore how we perceive the world - how sensory input and perception shape our sense of reality. I am drawn to the tension between the real and the abstract, using shapes and colours as signs or symbols of the familiar. I am interested in painting as an object and the way that the paint sits on the canvas, refusing to be read as a total illusionistic space.