My work is about expressing the rawness of life – its pain, beauty, randomness and its’ ordinariness. It could be in the delicacy or fragility of a flower or the strength and vulnerability of a figure.
I use oil paints which I find rich and colourful and I enjoy being able to paint on layer after layer. I often draw on top with charcoal in quite a crude and distorted way. I like the way a deeper reality can be revealed through distortion.
Matisse has been an influence, as has Rose Wylie, who I have known since childhood.
Education since A level
1985-88; First Class Degree In Social Science majoring in Philosophy, University of East Anglia
1989-93; Worked with children and in the caring profession, Travelled and did voluntary work in India.
1994-2002 Qualified in and worked as a Drama Therapist and supervisor and a (an integrative arts) Psychotherapist.
Artistic Training
2002-2005 Portrait Course and weekly Masterclass with Eileen Cooper RA at Dulwich Picture Gallery
2003 Summer School at the Slade in Painting and Drawing
2003-2006 Painting and Printmaking Classes at Morley College
Exhibitions
2003 Pastel Society
2003-2005 Morley Gallery
2005 Private Exhibition at Artists’ House
2006 Dulwich Picture Gallery Summer Exhibition
2006 Salon de Refusee, East Dulwich
2007 Dartmouth Arms with Artdog
Prizes
2005, Special Award for Bird 2005 International Art Exhibition, China, for collograph ‘Ducks’
2006, Deborah Roslund Prize, at Dulwich Picture Gallery Summer Exhibition for painting ‘Man’
Exhibitions in 2008
Dulwich Festival Artists Open House and as part of Artdog at Pippa Grabers House
Six years ago I did a four day course with Eileen Cooper at Dulwich Picture Gallery. I then took a weekly Masterclass with Eileen, did a summer school in painting and drawing at the Slade, and took painting and printmaking classes at Morley College.
I have exhibited at The Pastel Society, Morley Gallery, and the Dulwich Picture Gallery Summer Exhibition, where I was awarded the Deborah Roslund Prize. I also had a private exhibition in my home. My most recent exhibition was with Artdog at the Dartmouth Arms in Forest Hill in
