What is your graduate project about?

My project weaves together narratives from personal biographies, myths and stories.  

The works retrieve images, characters and props from latent memories and current impressions, providing a mythical stage for personal as well as cultural archetypes to play out a strange and mysterious tale.  

I investigate the way that intergenerational relationships are experienced and seen simultaneously through the lens of a child, an adult, a sibling and a mother, and how these relationships mold a lens with which we view the world, both distorting and magnifying experiences and limiting our peripheral view.  

They hold much power and can elicit both intense insight as well as deep restriction. In my work the subliminal theatre is given visual form, creating images which have both disturbing elements and great tenderness, reflecting the universal stories inherent in our interwoven generations.

How do you best like to work?

I work quickly and without a pre-imagined image in my head. Although all my work is figurative and realistic, and I have studied the figure a lot in the past, I don't use a model these days; the figures are amalgamations of the characters within my family, myself or are created on the page.  

I like to use draughtsmanship as the backbone to my process: this is where my ideas evolve, images develop, and stories are made. I use a variety of techniques to create a multi-faceted approach within my overarching theme. I use printmaking techniques such as etching, linocuts, monoprints etc, as well as drawings, illustrations to short stories and paintings. Each technique offers a new perspective and helps to generate new ideas and images. 

What have been the highlights of your time at ECA and living in Edinburgh?

My highlights have been having access to new techniques, approaches, and ideas, while being inspired by established artists who already work in the field. It's been incredible to be encouraged, supported, and engaged with as the springboard to our next step as emerging artists.  

I'm a long-term resident of Edinburgh and through my classmates it has filled me full of a renewed appreciation of what a culturally rich city it is. 

Do you have any plans for after graduation?

My plans are to work as an artist and continue to write and illustrate. I will apply for artists in residence programmes to gain experience and build bodies of work I hope to exhibit and publish.  

Dumfries House have also expressed interest in me attending an artist in residence programme in 2023.  

It's been an intense and fruitful year where I have grown and developed both personally and professionally more than I could have imagined.