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Artist statement -

My work is underpinned by a curiosity in materials, their characteristics, and applications. I am intrigued how constituents can be transformed by routine or by unconventional use, redeployed, and recontextualised, across different disciplines. I use many commonplace products such as paper, card, and textiles; ubiquitous in my previous career as a fashion designer. As in fashion, so it is the same in art and architecture; contemporary culture encourages the fetishizing of what are deemed desirable objects and experiences. My work attempts to uncover the humble origins of these objects in order to comment on aspiration and social mobility. Banal materials are deliberately used to provoke questions about worth, and that with the right intention, or procedures these can attain an innovative value previously unseen or overlooked. 

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I use abstract imagery which references the language of urban architecture and spaces identified as ‘non places’ by anthropologist Marc Auge in his essay of the same name. My attraction to modern architecture and its visual language stems from a desire to be an architect when much younger. Primarily I was interested in the radical post war architecture and teachings of the Bauhaus school. These teachings recognised that all materials have equal status in realising a creative vision. It was perhaps the first school to encourage the use of textiles in fine artworks. 

 

According to Auge, under neo liberal capitalism our social spaces are being redeveloped as spaces of consumption rather than geographical areas where communities can meet to interact. This has brought into play a hierachical system where only those with the money to consume are viewed as desirable and allowed to inhabit the spaces. As a result of this inequality there is a deadening conformity and familiarity, a homogeneity of experience in these neighbourhoods. Politically I reject this and hope that my work prompts people to rethink their sense of belonging, how they have agency, how we can make art reflect our diverse backgrounds. 

 

 

  

 

 

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