About me:
I have been a working artist since leaving University of Westminster in 1992 with a BA hons in Photography. I also have an MA in photography from De Montfort Univeristy. SInce 1992 I have made my living working as a facilitator/artist with many different groups of people and increasingly by working as an artist in residence at Addenbrookes Hospital, The Leper Chapel and The Museum of Technology in Cambridge. My practice has been moving towards creating site-specific work that explores notions of history, memory and time-passing, using found photographs and objects as a starting point for research.
As artist artist in residence in three very different buildings or institutions – Addenbrookes hospital archives, a 12th Century church (the Leper Chapel) and Cambridge Museum of Technology, an old pumping station, the theme that has connected and remains constant throughout is the exploration of the complex relationship between past events and contemporary ideas in society.
Underlying and motivating the work at Addenbrookes hospital was the desire to record and understand paradoxes that are present within the hospital,fragility versus substance, the dramatic versus the everyday, stillness versus the passing of time
At the Leper Chapel, I explored the theme of the “Mass of Separation” – a Christian mass that was obligatory for the lepers who attended the church and lived in the hospital. It separated them from the rest of society whilst giving them shelter and solace in the church and hospital. My response to this piece was to create an installation using sound and film that questioned marginalisation and stigma. In my most recent exhibition at the Cambridge Museum of Technology I re-created a collection within the museum, looking for ways that went beyond the two-dimensionality of a series of photographs and representing elements such as texture, light, space, the beauty of the machine and presenting them for people to experience by moving around and through the work.
The AA2A scheme will allow me to develop digital skills and would also give me time to research and re-frame how I describe my practice within contemporary art debates, satisfying both practical and academic elements that are essential to any in-depth pieces of work and to document the process through on-going diary or blog.
News:
Please contact me for directions, if you would like to come to a Retrospective of my work from 1992 -2009 at my home on 14th and 15th November from 12 - 5pm. I am creating an installation in my sitting room - basically an excuse to get all photos, notebooks, publications old negatives and so on... out to look at, talk about and (hopefully) sell....
