Artist statement:
The connection of people through communities, the connection of meaning to symbols in order to have shortcuts to communicate meaning (language). The connection of our mind to our body. The connection of our internalised feeling to an externalised image, for example when we watch something gory and experience goosebumps. A sensation which acts as an idea of feeling. The decay of classical architecture and scultpture, how these forms are replicated as relationships to power. T
Through my practice im building up a structure of structures where images become references which then, as pastiche are removed from their original context. Each thing I make also takes part of the message from the medium. Things should be funny in a way, or not? It’s up to you whether you think something is funny. Ultimate eveything I mess around with comes back to thinking about the interaction of intrinsic thought and physical experience. I’m asking, what does it means to be connected? What does the way we build society, design our personal indenties do?
As an arts researcher, I’m particularly focused on ethical forms of commuity connection. How can art and community, sub-groups and spaces be built to maintain resistance against marketisation? I am interested in the practical application of community arts-based ethics towards an ideal of community intergrated artistic creation (not built on a prescriptive model of culture).
Biog
Born in 1992 in Newham General Hospital, I have since continued to exist on this planet with great confliction and too many ideas.
I lived in a tiny flat in Forest Gate for the first few years of my life. Sharing space with a family of cockroaches who had infested the downstairs flat. They proceeded to terrify the two builders who came to strip out the kitchen cabinets.
When I was two or so, I moved to Coley Park in Reading where I got into some trouble. Climbing lamp posts, sneaking into abandoned swimming pools and getting stuck between neighbours’ fences. Formative memories include being excellent at conkers, a friend whose family walked really fast and eating cubed cheese during sleepovers.
At age eight, we moved again up to Macclesfield in Cheshire. Where, having had my childish adventures, I informed my younger sister that I was too old to play anymore. Surely a traumatic event in her young life as I was in charge of all imaginary games. At this point I chose to pivot to a rich internal life, reading and drawing for large swathes of my time like a Victorian invalid.
I lived in Macclesfield from age eight to fourteen, moving through several different houses. A millworkers terrace with no garden and the remnants of an outdoor toilet in the back courtyard,
a tiny grounds keeper’s cottage on a
working farm, a Victorian terrace painted entirely in shades of lime green and
yellow. At age eleven I started at high school, where the onsite kiln and
well-funded art department meant I was encouraged to produced better
quality artwork.
During this time, I became a latch-key kid, spending hours after school siting on a flat garage roof and eating chips with friends.
At fourteen, I moved again, this time to live with my aunt and uncle in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire. As a birthday present, I received an old school iMac and a white fake leather egg chair, two objects I spent more time with than my family. At this point I became particularly interested in digital artwork and familiar with photoshop. I also started to learn how to code, developing technical skills in order to contribute to online groups.
I lived in the area around Broxbourne from this age until leaving for university at eighteen although moved again to Stanstead Abbotts and later Ware. At A-level I focused on my artwork and produced a portfolio of work that won me acceptance to a Foundation Diploma in Art and Design at Central Saint Martins. The first person in the school’s history to get onto a UAL course. In September 2011, I moved again but this time alone, returning to London and a year later up to Leeds to study a BA Fine Arts.
That concludes a short history, the rest is contemporary.
During this time, I became a latch-key kid, spending hours after school siting on a flat garage roof and eating chips with friends.
At fourteen, I moved again, this time to live with my aunt and uncle in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire. As a birthday present, I received an old school iMac and a white fake leather egg chair, two objects I spent more time with than my family. At this point I became particularly interested in digital artwork and familiar with photoshop. I also started to learn how to code, developing technical skills in order to contribute to online groups.
I lived in the area around Broxbourne from this age until leaving for university at eighteen although moved again to Stanstead Abbotts and later Ware. At A-level I focused on my artwork and produced a portfolio of work that won me acceptance to a Foundation Diploma in Art and Design at Central Saint Martins. The first person in the school’s history to get onto a UAL course. In September 2011, I moved again but this time alone, returning to London and a year later up to Leeds to study a BA Fine Arts.
That concludes a short history, the rest is contemporary.