Artist Statement
My work explores cross-species relationships through the creation of hybrid sculptural forms, interrogating the entanglements between humans and non-humans and the surprising ways that agency can arise through these connections. ‘Do Animals Work?’ is the title of an essay by Vinciane Despret, who investigates the ways in which dairy cows can be regarded as workers. This philosophical enquiry has driven my current work on the labour, agency and visibility of non-humans, in particular cows.
The ‘Hi-Vis Pelts’ are an ongoing series of sculptures, both wall-based and freestanding, that utilise recycled high visibility clothing reconstructed into dazzling cowskins. These objects bear the tarmac scuffs of their previous life in enigmatic gestures and marks across their surface. The garments are deconstructed and reconfigured into abstract compositions of fluorescent colour and reflective lines. These objects are both alluring and unsettling; the image of a pelt implies brutality (who gets to keep their skin and who loses theirs?) but also utility – animal hides were used for the earliest human clothing and shelter.
Diverse materiality is at the core of my practice; solidified cows’ milk, beef tallow, sheep’s fleece and recycled hi-visibility workwear are used to make partially abstracted, creaturely forms. My new work uses milk as a sculptural material, playing with ideas of purity and contamination, and attempting to re-enliven the animality of this ubiquitous substance. I am fascinated by the duality of milk, which is both sensual and sour, alluring and unsettling.
In her book’ Lovebug’, which examines intimacy and cross species contamination, Daisy Lafarge comments that ‘no species is an island’. My current work explores these interconnections and their potentialities – both benign and threatening. Animal agency, microbiology and sympathetic magic are all brought into conversation through the rich materiality of animal products.
My installations create liminal spaces for these ideas to mingle and multiply. I often use candlelight, incorporated into melting sculptural forms made from tallow, to animate the work or imbue it with life or liveliness. Beef tallow is used as a way of bringing the cow’s presence into the space through the physical corporeality of the bovine body. For me, this act is one of reverence
Education
University of North Carolina at Greensboro. USA. MFA in Studio Arts, concentration in Sculpture and Installation. 2015- 2017
University of Brighton. UK. BA Fine Art Sculpture. 2008 – 2011
Selected Exhibitions
2025
SNAG Safehouse 2. Peckham
Growing Season Part 2, Lewisham Arthouse
HACK 8558 Shaftesbury Avenue, Bow Arts
2024
Waterloo Kiln Commission, Swinton, Yorkshire.
Material Matters, Safehouse 1 & 2. Peckham.
Seedbomb, Newhaven Open Call. Newhaven, East Sussex.
Growing Season (Part 1) with Coven Collective. Lewisham.
Landslide, MASS Sculpture show, Thames Side Gallery, Woolwich.
Here be Giants, The Sun Inn, Saffron Walden.
GOGMAGOG, Cambridge Artworks. Solo
2023
Let Them Eat Fake, BWG Gallery, Soho.
2022
Memory Into Landscape, Elysium Gallery, Swansea.
Rooted, Sussex Prairie Gardens.
Outrageous Cretaceous, Sevenoaks Kaleidoscope Gallery. Solo
Limen, No Format Gallery, Deptford. Solo
2021
The Plymouth Contemporary, Karst Gallery & Levinsky Gallery, Plymouth.
Soft Snacks, Block Gallery, Raleigh and Meredith College. NC USA. International collaboration
Luck & Limen, Sevenoaks Kaleidoscope Gallery, Kent. Solo
Force, Southern Vermont Arts Center, Vermont USA.
2020
TAPS Now, Kosar Contemporary, Bristol UK.
2019
Thicket, Tunnel Gallery, Tonbridge School, Kent UK. Solo
Confluence, collaborative site-specific installation, St Mary’s Church Burham, Kent UK.
Residencies
Artist in Residence. Cambridge Artworks. June – July 2023
Artist in Residence. The Island, Bristol. January 2021
Artist in Residence. Tonbridge School, Kent. 2019-2020
Artist in Residence. Discover Roman Otford Project, Kent. 2019-2020
Artist in Residence. Jiwar, Barcelona, Spain. August 2018
Artist in Residence. Vermont Studio Center, VT. May 2018
Winter Artist in Residence. Salem Art Works, NY September 2014- March 2015
Visiting Artist. Minoterie 21, Brittany, France. August 2013
Intern Artist. Salem Art Works, NY May-August 2013
Intern Artist. Franconia Sculpture Park, MN August-November 2011.
Public Artworks
Waterloo Kiln Commission, Swinton, Yorkshire. Commissioned by Rotherham Museums Arts and Heritage 2024
‘Triassic Slices’ Curve Theatre, Leicester. Commissioned by Vehicle Arts 2022
‘Xenia I & II’ Tonbridge School, commissioned 2020
‘Feast’ Salem Art Works Sculpture Park, New York. Installed 2015. Permanent
‘Summer Something’ Salem Art Works Sculpture Park, New York. Installed 2014. Permanent
Awards
Helen A Thrush Scholarship 2016-2017
Howard Scholarship 2016-2017
Adelaide Holderness Graduate Fellow, 2015-2016