Northern Queer
Working Class Contemporary
Artist & Writer
BA Hons Fine Art /
MA Fine Art / PGCE in Art Education
I grew up in a small town on the outskirts of Wakefield in West Yorkshire; it’s the kind of place where even all of these years later, you still remember every face and every block of flats or field has it’s own memories attached to it and stories that seem to just wait right there, until you drive by again years later and return home.
My father is a skilled woodworker and my mother is an artist alongside her career. Whilst my mother worked long hours during my childhood I would spend my days drawing onto newspapers and notebooks at my late grandmothers house, that’s where my creativity began…
Experiences originating from childhood, my working class roots and being queer often appear throughout my work. I juggled jobs in shops and food whilst studying at college and university and would bring cardboard and materials home to make work from, I would use whatever I could get my hands on and being resourceful never really goes away.
There’s something about combining abstract drawings and paintings, writing and poetry together that allows me to dance between the lines of needing to be heard and the desire to remain private. One moment I can be drawing lines that remind me of the bobby hair pins a woman might leave scattered across a lovers floor or painting queer symbols such as the violet flowers and pink triangles, the next I could be writing letters and phrases that become illegible or erased, allowing me to write then re-write the stories that bind us and to make my mark upon this world.
When I’m not in the studio making and preparing work for exhibitions, I spend time as one of four artists in residence on the AA2A programme at Loughborough University and am a visiting lecturer in Fine Art and have experience in teaching further education, higher education and adult education and facilitate arts workshops.