Artists Statement

I read Moby Dick in the summer of 2001 and had I known, I wouldn’t have picked it up.  I should have guessed how dangerous a book it could be as I was lead to it by seeing some of the huge body of work that American abstract artist Frank Stella had made in response to the work.  Since then it has loomed over my creative life, fed my work, and very nearly derailed the art degree I started in Belfast in 2001 and completed in Norwich in 2004.  It was only the move to another location that enabled me to reassess my work and achieve some sort of resolution that enabled me to produce a coherent degree show (though it did make for an interesting dissertation!).

From Moby Dick, I took the idea of inter-relationships of people and things.  Rope seemed to encapsulate and in some way articulate my response to the book and a range of wider issues that it addressed.  Even now the theme of relationships underpins my work and is almost always there somewhere, from the layering of strata in cliffs to the slightly more obvious symbolism of overblown tulips.

Although I trained as a printmaker I have produced work in a range of media including ceramics and most recently textile.  Most of the work on the site is available for purchase, please contact me for further information.