How did you become an artist?
I feel like I’ve always been an artist in some way, even as a very young kid I was always drawing, always playing, making up my own sort of worlds and stories and things. I guess I was just kind of good at art at school and then I studied it at university and that’s when I really realised I could be an artist professionally.
How has your work evolved?
I feel my work has evolved a lot. I used to be more about space and place as I used to travel around quite a lot and I was always drawing from memory based on the places that I’d been to and experiences that I’d had in those places. But I feel like recently it’s become more than just about a space and place with the addition of a virtual space as well. I’ve become very inspired by virtual reality & social media. My work evolved from ink drawing into abstract painting and then back again, and then making my own worlds in virtual reality and putting those back into ink paintings again. It’s constantly evolving.
Where do your ideas come from?
I get a lot of ideas while I’m moving and while I’m travelling. I think a lot of my best ideas come while I’m just on a train, going somewhere. I’m very inspired by other artists and people that I speak to. I guess ideas can come from anywhere really.
How do you transform ideas into art?
It’s mainly through symbolism and through contrast; contrasting different things on one piece of paper and telling a story through repeated imagery almost like a Rorschach test. At times, I’ll just make this abstract splodge of ink on a canvas and I’ll draw into it from my subconscious mind and that develops into a piece of work. By drawing into these fractal forms, at times it can feel as through I am studying a language. I found that by doing that I was able to draw natural things, like trees, rocks and clouds and water, just from memory because those fractal forms are found in those objects.
How are you responding to the We Are Asteroids Residency theme?
I suppose we’re all just stardust, really, and we always will be therefore, through my work I am trying to remind people that we are nature and not in this battle against it, even though it can seem that way at times. I’m trying to bring my work back to the environmental issue of climate change, so that’s going to be a big topic I’ll be dealing with in my work going forward.
What do you hope to get out of the residency?
I’d quite like to interact with other local artists, galleries and universities in this area. I want to make really great artwork and hopefully give something back to the community. I want to put on some workshops with kids and adults and see if I can teach them to paint and open up a discussion about some of the ideas and themes that are in my work.