Artist Statement

My practice derives from the physical play with materials, irreversibly manipulating them to give them a new character and form. By reclaiming materials that once had an intimate relationship with the body, and often combining them with industrial substances, I instill a new sense of being and purpose into them. Through the simultaneous absence and presence of the figurative form, my work explores the notion the anonymous, incorporating juxtaposing ideas of the comforting and the uncomfortable, the familiar and the strange. Themes of life and death are paralleled by surreal, dream-like or nightmarish environments, whilst the beauty of the everyday creates a sense of both uncertainty and discovery. ‘This Grey Shadow, Once A Man’ is inspired by the myth of Tithonus, and the title is taken from Tennyson’s poem of the same name. It is a story in which Tithonus, at Aurora’s request, is granted immortality by Zeus, however in forgetting to ask for his eternal youth, she remained young and Tithonus continued to age past the point of death. Whilst some stories describe Aurora leaving his decrepit body in a room and locking the door, others describe Aurora turning him into a cicada, in a potential act of kindness. The work imagines the body ‘reducing’ into a cicada-like form, laying down in an eternal rest.