About a million years ago, I got an A for Art A-Level. Most of the stuff I produced was classical drawing and oil painting and I didn’t ever really like anything I created. I went on to study languages at university and worked for many years as a picture editor, selecting and commissioning photography for national newspapers and magazines. Then I got a job as a Mum and did Mum things like wipe bottoms and cut finger nails and make packed lunches.
I’m still a Mum, but in 2019 I started drawing again and am actually starting to like some of the stuff I produce. I love experimentation and illustration and often far prefer artists' sketches to finished paintings so am constantly searching for ways to retain the light spontaneity of sketching but also develop my many daily drawings from life. In 2023, I joined a print room and feel that combining printmaking with observational illustration may be the direction I am heading in.
I was on Sky's Portrait Artist of the Year in 2022 doing a collage portrait of jazz pianist Alexis Ffrench; it was so nerve-racking, and so much fun. I've since exhibited with the Mall Galleries, Ironbridge, Green & Stone, Leamington Spa and the RBSA and have had my work featured in Artists & Illustrators Magazine, Contemporary Collage Mag and Pressing Matters amongst others. In 2024 I became an associate of the Society of Woman Artists.
See here for more boasting...
As for influences, I'm in awe of Alice Neel for her raw, imperfect people, Richard Diebenkorn for his dramatic ink drawings and Fairfield Porter for his flat shapes and depiction of sun-drenched light. I also spent quite a bit of time in Germany falling in love with Albrecht Dürer, Käthe Kollwitz, August Sander and Otto Dix.
I've had a massive crush on David Hockney since the age of sixteen.
I’m still a Mum, but in 2019 I started drawing again and am actually starting to like some of the stuff I produce. I love experimentation and illustration and often far prefer artists' sketches to finished paintings so am constantly searching for ways to retain the light spontaneity of sketching but also develop my many daily drawings from life. In 2023, I joined a print room and feel that combining printmaking with observational illustration may be the direction I am heading in.
I was on Sky's Portrait Artist of the Year in 2022 doing a collage portrait of jazz pianist Alexis Ffrench; it was so nerve-racking, and so much fun. I've since exhibited with the Mall Galleries, Ironbridge, Green & Stone, Leamington Spa and the RBSA and have had my work featured in Artists & Illustrators Magazine, Contemporary Collage Mag and Pressing Matters amongst others. In 2024 I became an associate of the Society of Woman Artists.
See here for more boasting...
As for influences, I'm in awe of Alice Neel for her raw, imperfect people, Richard Diebenkorn for his dramatic ink drawings and Fairfield Porter for his flat shapes and depiction of sun-drenched light. I also spent quite a bit of time in Germany falling in love with Albrecht Dürer, Käthe Kollwitz, August Sander and Otto Dix.
I've had a massive crush on David Hockney since the age of sixteen.