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About

Exhibitions

  Objects, meanings and associations: A comparison between artists and non-artists, research project 2017

Shadows & Echoes: Artist Residency, Crypt Gallery, St Pancras, London 2016

The Archive Project II:  London, online, 2016 curated by Eleanor MacFarlane, ongoing project

Voice of a Statue:  The Listening Booth, Collection 2, online 2016 curated by Katie Tindle

Abridged:  Covert Artist Residency, Royal College of Music, London 2015-16 curated by Eleanor MacFarlane

Facsimile:  Covert Artist Residency, Victoria & Albert Museum, London 2015 curated by Eleanor MacFarlane

Embedded Q-Art 14, APT Gallery, London 2014 curated by Luis I Rodriguez

Embedded:  TheNine, MA fine art show, Bank Street Arts, Sheffield 2014 group curated

Construction, Myriad, The Future Past Tense:  Fringe Arts Bath Festival 2014

Absolute Magnitude II Earth:  touring, UK, international 2014 curated by Eleanor MacFarlane

Which alters when it alteration finds:  Displaced, The Wiener Library, London 2014

Crucial Pursuit!: T he Financial Planning Game for Artists 2013 ongoing project

The Future Past Tense, Construction: Q-Art, Wimbledon College of Art, London 2013

The Future Past Tense: Picture This, British Dyslexia Association, Bracknell 2013

Myriad: Slaughter & May Art Fair, London 2013

Transition, Personification:  University of the Creative Arts Gallery, Kent 2012 curated by Marta Patlewicz & Sebastian Kaye



Multitude: The Art Shed, The Art Street, London 2012 curated by Eleanor MacFarlane

Seep: The Body Sublime, Parlour Arts, London 2012 curated by Fiona Bradley & Mihaela Cristea

Vessels: Secret portraits in bottles, Gallery of Wonder, Newcastle University 2012 curated by Irene Brown, solo exhibition

Contraption:  Lightworks, Grimsby Minster 2011

Seep: Modern Panic, The Old Abattoir, Guerrilla Zoo, London 2011 curated by James Elphick

Personification: Rarities, Coastal Currents Festival, Hastings 2011 curated by Alban Low

theLongLine: Big Draw event, London 2011 curated by Eleanor MacFarlane, ongoing project

theProgressiveImage: Original Gallery, London 2011 curated by Eleanor MacFarlane

Absolute Magnitude: I Sun touring, UK, international 2011 curated by Eleanor MacFarlane

theViewergallery: online, onsite, popup art gallery 2011 curated by Eleanor MacFarlane, ongoing project

Seep: Whitechapel Gallery, London 2010

Screenings:  theViewergallery 2010 curated by Eleanor MacFarlane

Ever: Underground City, Divus, London 2009 curated by Michaela Freeman

I wonder if: Gaze and Body, Rotoreliefs, London 2009

The Archive Project:  I London 2008 curated by Eleanor MacFarlane

Mirror, Signal:  The Bigger Picture, Cornerhouse, Manchester 2007

Viewer: Contemporary Art on Vintage Equipment, Hornsey, London 2007 curated by Eleanor MacFarlane, solo exhibition

Warp: the.gallery@oxo, London 2007

Objectify: Small is Beautiful, Royal Academy Schools Gallery, London 2007 group curated

Chairism: The Opposite of Winter, Candid Arts Trust, London 2007

Contraption: Free Range, BA fine art show, Truman Brewery, London 2006 group curated

Education

MSc psychology University of Hertfordshire, 2015-2017

MA Fine Art Open College of the Arts, University for the Creative Arts, 2011-2014

BA Fine Art First-class, Middlesex University, 2001-2006

Fine Art Academy of Fine Arts, Prague, 2003

Art & Design Foundation University of Hertfordshire, 1999-2001

Photography City and Islington College, 1998-1999

Tape Slide Film Hackney College @Rio Cinema , 1997-1998

Textiles Open College of the Arts, 1989

Stringed Instrument Making London College of Furniture , 1985-1987

Viola & Viol Royal College of Music , 1982-1984  

Assessing & Reviewing

As Artistic Assessor in Visual Arts for the Arts Council, I am sent to about one exhibition a month to write an independent report, basically assessing the artistic content of the exhibition, whether it delivers, is coherent, well produced, and so on. As a result I have visited galleries and cities I'd never been to before, and spent time considering art I may have passed by.

As book reviewer, I am sent a few every month. I usually review books on art, artists, photography, music and culture. More recently I have been sent poetry to review, a challenge which I have really enjoyed. It is always a surprise to open up the parcel and see what is there - I have a lifelong passion for books.

It is something of a surprise to me how much of my activity over time has been in assessing and reviewing exhibitions and books. At school with unrecognised dyslexia, I especially hated summarising and found it frustrating and difficult. Sometimes we are drawn to such difficulties, like staring at a bright light we just can't tear our eyes away from. I am drawn to this type of critique, which is in essence a form of summarising.

Art Practice

My art practice and methods of work evolved from childhood, noticing the way sunlight reflects on windows, or the sky darkens behind winter trees. As a lifelong migraine sufferer, I also experienced visual distortion and auras, beautiful glints of light and colour which I always found to be meaningful. As a child I was a great gatherer of information, adoring compiling projects. An early reader, I did not realise I was dyslexic until my 30’s, which had given me an utter fixation with text, words and meaning.

Like many creative people, I cite some childhood experiences as the blueprint to how I work now, my brain being hardwired in a certain way. Study, work and adulthood have certainly given me more ability to manifest my ideas and finish larger projects, but I feel I still think the same.

I compile vast collections of images, windows, shadows, suggestions. Also ideas, phrases, stories I would like to write, films I would like to make. This archive is my collection of sketchbooks, and has become my preferred view of the world, in that when I see a particularly good cloud, I like to remember a cloud piece I made and see nature imitating art. I always refer to my own images for work, and consider the influence of other art equal to all influence – novels, films, music, science, nature, life and above all, people.

For a Moving Image work, I work on an idea of something I would like to express, perhaps the flow of time in life, or some experience of existing. This usually coincides with an image which comes to me. Grasping these fleeting ideas, I start to write, notes, words, trying to define to myself this notion. Equally, methods in expressing visually the tone of the idea suggest themselves to me – a way of printing, a use of light, a type of place or atmosphere.

When I get a starting point, my job is to keep that vision clear in my head while I try to manifest it, taking footage, visiting places to film, or making something. I work alone, and enjoy inventing solutions to problems I have created for myself. Gradually the elements come together, and I have enough to make the piece. Although I have a repertoire of editing techniques, I always find myself trying something different and inventing new methods to realise the piece. I work frame by frame, layer by layer, both polishing up my footage, and going where the technique suggests.​

My musical training has given me a legacy of live performance. I would rather take video footage 20 or 30 times over to get it right, than to piece together a version from various segments. I also have a hands-on darkroom approach to the computer – it speeds up my work, but I will make an image dark rather than darken it using a programme, or I will distort it through glass manually when shooting. This pedantic approach may be subtle, but I firmly believe that it maintains the integrity of my vision, and also is picked up, even subliminally, by the eye, and even in digital video.

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