Me at age 3!
Art and creative expression have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My mother would often sit me and my sister at the kitchen table with a mix of paper, paints, glue and craft materials, though in those early days I have been told that after a short while I would become disinterested.
It was not really until college/university that I started to fall in love with art. I have always enjoyed a wide range of creative expression in some capacity, being involved in theatre, music and crafts alongside studying art for most of my life. While I had fun participating in the moment, I never spent an extensive amount of time improving outside of the classes. I would occasionally draw in my free time or have a little go on the piano, but I was never trying to improve.
I did appreciate art, which is why I chose to study it at school, but it was not until college that something seemed to click. When choosing my A-level subjects, I flippantly chose photography; I had already chosen art, maths and physics, so I thought photography would balance it out and would help me with my art course. Somehow, I absolutely fell in love; I wasn’t just going with the flow anymore but actively pushing myself to improve, getting my own camera and going on photo walks: it became my focus.
I loved it so much that I continued it through to university! I started to develop my creative voice in self-portraits inspired by myths and fairytales. I would utilise these historic stories to tell modern and personal narratives.
It was also at university that I discovered collage. At the time I would use collage to support my photography work to add depth to the pieces; however, due to moving around a lot post-uni, my main focus is now collage. Yet a lot of the sensibilities and creative passion I developed through photography are still the fundamentals of my collage work.
'Between Dog and Wolf' 2023
My work has always been somewhat gloomy, yet masked with a pretty visual, almost dreamlike, wistful or melancholic. I think this is why I am so drawn to fairytales. They are often full of beautiful things, magic, gorgeous illustrations and nature, but more often than not there is a foreboding, warning and fear within them. I often use my work to explore pieces of my life, an outlet for me to talk about my feelings without having to worry about finding the correct words.
As collage became my main focus, and I was no longer using my own photos within them, I began developing a style completely separate from my photography. The regular explorations and ambition I had pushed me to grow; my shapes, lines and readability have improved, and my pieces now have a stronger purpose. My voice has grown, allowing my work to have direction and meaning. It is no longer just about assembling images in an interesting way that somewhat conveys a feeling; it is about using those images to communicate, reflect, and understand myself more deeply.
In that sense, my artistic voice has become clearer over time: a blend of beauty and unease, of fairytale softness and emotional honesty, shaped by a trust in my work to speak for me.
'The Frogs in my pool' 2026