I am an artist exploring memories, landscape and specifically my connection to the Cambridgeshire Fens where I was born and grew up.
Having studied Three-dimensional Design, specialising in silversmithing and metalwork at Camberwell College of Arts, I went on to become a successful garden designer. After moving from London to North Norfolk I have spent the last 8 years looking after my 3 children and renovating my home – a 17th century farmhouse. It was this period of using tools, new materials and learning skills connected to building and construction that has instigated the return to my practice.
My family have lived and worked the land in the same Fenland area for generations. The land there is in our blood no matter where we are in the World. The Fens are a constant source of contradictions – open, yet closed. It has strange weather such as whirlygigs, twisters and mists that spring up out of nowhere and yet you can see the rain coming from miles away. The landscape is so flat that you can see the curvature of the earth.
It is farmed intensively, up to the field boundaries in most cases, due to the fertility of the dark peat soil but underneath this layer there is an amazingly well preserved host of secrets – evidence of past civilisations and cultures from thousands of years ago. The archaeological sites of Flag Fen and Must Farm have greatly influenced my work. Finds include pottery, beads and metalwork such as axes, sickles, swords and spears. There is also evidence of an earlier walkway dating from 1290 – 1250 BC and it is here that metalwork has been deliberately deposited.
I love the fact that on passing through the landscape it all seems like an open book and yet, as with so many things in life, if you look a little deeper, there is so much more than meets the eye.
I make pieces of work that have a timeless quality whilst telling my own personal story of the connection to the land.
