RECENT WORK
SALT AND OTHER STORIES
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‘Salt and other stories’ is a series of photographs and textile works all developed during or in response to the time I spent as an artist in residence at Torre Abbey in 2024. All of the works were created with a major theme of Torre Abbey’s restoration in mind. I was fascinated to learn about the challenges Torre Abbey faces due to its proximity to the sea and how the salt air erodes the medieval plaster.
I was interested in this particularly because salt is often used as a preservative in my artwork whether through fixing photographs as the final step or in the process of creating natural dyes to colour textiles. I wanted to play with this idea of erosion and preservation as a theme. I was drawn to the beautiful gardens at Torre Abbey and the abundance of flowers while I was there on residency. I wanted to capture them with my cameras as each day and each week that I spent there more of the flowers came and went. Having experienced a significant bereavement recently, grief and loss is ever present in my work. Working with the garden at Torre Abbey was an ever present reminder of change and of new life, death and decay.
I expanded on the photographic process I have been experimenting with, collecting plant matter from the area I am photographing and using this along with some natural ingredients to create a site specific developer. This is a hugely important part of my process as it allows the place I am photographing to make its mark on the images I am producing. No two developing solutions are the same and because of this some of the control of what the images will look like is taken away from me and the process becomes unique to the plants I am photographing and the strength of the developing solution that I have created from them.
The textile works I created for the exhibition were a response to the drawings, paintings and photographic studies that I took of the garden while I was there. I created these pieces from my studio over the winter and it brought me great joy to be reminded of the beauty and colour that I experienced in my time in the gardens.
PLACE/PLAY/SPACE
Place/Play/Space is the work created on a place-based residency at the Liberal Club in Paignton. During my time on residency at the Liberal Club I explored natural spaces in Paignton and created artwork influenced by it. I created natural inks from plant materials and made textile pieces from them. This artwork focused on play and letting go. I also did some natural dyeing from foraged plant materials for a large yellow weaving in the space.
I experimented with plant based analogue photography and created a series of pinhole photographs of Paignton’s plants and flowers using those foraged plants to develop the images.
I also took photographs on 35mm film and developed them using fallen plant materials, leaves, pine cones and flowers. They were displayed on the projector in the exhibition.
I tried solar photography (placing a transparency over a leaf and letting the sun bleach parts of it) which was an interesting princess but will need a lot more practice to perfect.
The artwork in the space grew over the three weeks of the residency as I created more work and experimented with the natural resources that Paignton has to offer. The experience of being on residency here was explorative and playful and I had time to practice with a lot of new processes. This meant that I had a lot of failed attempts as well as successes and that has all been part of the process.
I also hosted a community day on the 23rd of May where I invited people in to create artwork from flowers and plants and add it to a community weaving.
The place where I make my work has become a crucial part of the making itself. The place informs and becomes part of the artwork. Post-pandemic, I am spending much more time outdoors in interesting places, and this inspires and excites me. This time in Paignton helped me discover many more natural spaces that I hadn’t explored or appreciated before.
I am becoming much more aware of how my practice impacts the world around me and I am seeking new ways to continue to create without as much of an environmental impact. The time on the WIDE OPEN residency was a really positive step towards that.
GRIEF IS A GARDEN
Healing/Soften is a place-based project about my mental health recovery from burnout during the pandemic and beyond. It is a personal project which explores processing grief, anxiety and loss. This project aims to allow me to start to feel things properly and soften again now that we are in a time of relative safety.
I make natural inks from foraged materials and also work with plant based analogue photographic techniques to create work for this project. I am using some of the therapy techniques I have learnt to make large mixed media artwork using the ink I have made. I use a therapy technique called ‘Bilateral Drawing’ in ‘Move Triptych’, which uses both hands and engages both hemispheres of the brain, which can be useful in regulating the nervous system and processing trauma.
The place where I make my work has become a crucial part of the making itself. The place informs and becomes part of the artwork. Post-pandemic, I am spending much more time outdoors in interesting places, and the places then also become part of my healing journey.
As an art therapist, I have an instinctive interest in connections, and how people benefit and impact each other. Through my practice as an artist, I have come to see how these instincts can also be applied to humans' relationship with the world around them. My understanding of the scientific aspects of my work has led to a greater awareness of the environmental impact of art making and drawn me to ways in which I can work with more sensitivity for nature and the world around me, for myself and for future generations.
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‘Move Triptych’
2023
Homemade daffodil, oak gall, and wood ash ink, charcoal, gold embroidery thread on cotton
Move is a part of a series of movement based artworks where I use a therapeutic technique called ‘Bilateral Drawing’. Bilateral Drawing uses both hands to create repetitive movements. This engages both hemispheres of the brain and can help to regulate the nervous system and process trauma. Different movements create different responses, some activate and some regulate.
The ink is made from foraged materials from different places. Each place then makes it’s own mark on the artwork. Ink making is a slow process in comparison to the fast movements of the Bilateral Drawing.
By using plant materials for this project, I am spending so much more time in the places I am making work in, rather than in the studio. I am taking time to fully connect with a place and getting to know it before I make work there.
I use Bilateral Drawing with certain clients in my Art Psychotherapy practice and have found that when I use this technique in my personal work I become completely absorbed in making. I feel calmer and clearer after making a piece.
This project is bringing me back to myself in many different ways and helping me to soften again.
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Ferns, Yorkshire Moors, UK
2023
Analogue photograph developed with plant material, print on paper, gold leaf
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Fan Palm, Los Angeles, USA
2023
Analogue photograph developed with plant material, print on paper, gold leaf
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Heather, Yorkshire, UK
2023
Analogue photograph developed with plant material, print on paper, gold leaf.
Heather is part of a series of photographs made in situ using experimental analogue techniques.
Plant materials that are photographed are then foraged and boiled up to make a photographic soup which the negatives are then developed in. In this way, the place makes it’s mark on the images that are made, the contrast, the tones are all influenced by the subject of the image.
This process takes time and ensures that I am able to connect with the place I am working in. It is a slow process in contrast to digital photography and allows the artwork to emerge organically over time.
Gold is a theme that runs through all of my artwork:
My work often explores challenges but as with life, there are always moments of joy alongside these things. I use gold in all of my pieces to represent the multitude of emotions that we feel at any given time and to remind myself that there is always joy to be found, even at the darkest of times.
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Vine Black Ink made from Bracken Tor Charcoal and made on site
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I am making artwork on site from foraged materials. Making work from and in nature is important to me, as I have always been interested in how our surroundings affect wellbeing. This project encourages me to get out into the world and look closely at what is around me. It is a deliberately slow process.
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Bilateral Drawing on cotton, made on site with residency ink
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Limits was made with a metal hoop laid onto a piece of cotton while the hoop was filled with acrylic paint. The hoop represents a vessel, an attempt to contain the multitude of daily tasks and emotions we are juggling. Ink and water were then slowly poured into the hoop. The ink finds paths through the paint, flows gently like a river. For a while, the hoop contains the ink; for a while we can sustain extreme pressure and stress. For a while.
And then it flows. The ink bursts the banks of the hoop and flows through onto the cotton, creating a cathartic sense of relief.
The ink creates something beautiful. Everything is OK.
The gold thread is then stitched onto the circle after the ink has dried. The slow embroidery stitching reflects the things that bring joy, the things that hold us together.
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It Comes In Waves is a five-metre-long piece of hand painted linen connected to a smaller canvas which creates the folds in the fabric reminiscent of flowing waves. Because so much fabric is pushed together it creates a sense a of compression which represents the multitude of flowing emotions felt over the last two years. The push/pull motif is also visible in this piece, as well as the gold flecks representing hope and joy in a chaotic time.
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Bursting is a continuation of a series of woven pieces started during the first lockdown. It is a weaving of hand painted recycled cotton, with wire as the weaving warp. The piece represents anxiety and movement, but also release. The use of wire is harsh but also stronger than the more traditional cotton warp it replaces.
Compared with traditional weaving, weaving with a wire warp requires more strength, and the large hoop requires full body movement. The process of making these pieces was a useful way to physically work through anxiety.
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An exploration of what home is and how the concept of home is shaped by immigration, discovering what this means in the modern world in relation to identity and loss.
I will embark upon a journey across Europe to explore my grandfather's Serbian heritage, using his memoirs to re-enact and document moments from his life.
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I find joy in making art that takes up space. For this reason I have made each of these weavings on large 70cm diameter frames. They are bright and colourful from afar, and when you get closer you can see the detail of the clouds and flowers. I like to work on large frames when weaving as it becomes a whole body process of weaving the weft (in this case the transferred photograph weft) onto the frame. It becomes almost meditative.
I wanted to use images of things that I believe I will be eternally fond of. The first weaving is a combination of lots of blue skies and clouds from photos I have taken. The second is a combination of lots of different photographs of sunsets that I have taken over the last few years. And the last is a series of photographs of some stunning purple flowers. I imagine myself in my older age being just as mesmorised with each of these things and ever keen to preserve them through art making.
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