Moved into my own studio at Empress Place in Earls Court, where I am part of a large artist community.
Exhibition: Life After Life at the Highgate Gallery 4-17th March 2022
With my Beyond the Likeness Group at our latest exhibition, we explored scenarios in which different centuries come together, highlighting society changing individuals holding contradictory and complementary attitudes, from differing political and sexual mores on the individual, to cultural change, the environment and especially, the Cemetery itself.
My paintings in the exhibition feature:
Philip Harben, the first real “TV Chef”, who’s shows ran from 1946 to 1964 (26 years before Keith Floyd and 53 years before Jamie Oliver) and published over 20 cookery books.
Karl Marx and his wife Jenny Marx
Highgate Gallery, 11 South Parade, London, N6 6BS.
‘Life After Life’ Press Release in Hampstead and Highgate News
Local article features my portrait of Philip Harben.
Graduation at the Tate Modern
This week I celebrate my graduation from the Art Academy in London, where Francis Morris gave the keynote address at the first ever graduation ceremony to be held at the Tate Modern.
With my formal training in haute couture and a lifelong interest in fashion I am passionate about the cut of clothing, especially a well-cut sleeve on the bias. I am interested in how people relate to what they wear and how they proclaim their individuality through their clothing. I enjoy exploring the relationship between the individual and their apparel.
My initial approach to this project was to explore the association between a uniform and its wearer and how individuals tweak uniforms within permitted parameters. I decided to focus on uniforms in a hospital environment because of my own recent medical experience during which I had noticed the many small ways in which plain uniforms were individualised. I had intended to explore the nuances of detail in clothing and the relationship to the wearer. And then the pandemic intervened, bringing the medical profession front of stage. The stresses to which the NHS staff were so obviously exposed caused me to reflect on the origins of the nursing profession and its relationships with the public it serves and the fact that nurses, in particular, were simultaneously ordinary people and key workers at the frontline of the pandemic.
In each of these three paintings the locked gaze between the two subjects creates an intimacy between them, with the viewer of the painting being an observer that is slightly removed. The severity of the nurses task depicted by the “old” nurse portraits, two of which are after paintings by Zinkeisen and the third by an unknown artist of the same era, is in contrast to the casual observation of the off-duty modern nurse who needs to continue an ordinary life with basic pleasures, here represented by the ice-cream cones.
The headgear worn by the three “old” nurses are symbols of rank which are less visible in modern nurses’ uniforms and entirely absent in the vividly coloured generic “street clothes” of each of the off-duty modern nurses in the foreground.
‘A Well Cut Sleeve on the Bias’
'100 Days of Solitude'
A group exhibition created during lockdown, click the link to see our four galleries:
www.100daysofsolitude.co.uk
Sky Portrait Artist of the Week
Clare Balding and Professor Green, charcoal on paper 50 x 60 cm.
Portraits for Heroes
Participating in “Portraits for Heroes” organised in aid for NHS workers during during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Pop-up Studio, Christies, London
Pop-up Studio, London Bridge
Online Gallery "Beyond the Likeness"
New Online Gallery
Some of my recent work is exhibited on this online gallery, take a look: