about

me colour
about
Having lived and worked in South London for most of my life I now live and work in Hampshire, England. I studied at Wimbledon School of Art, achieving a BA in Fine Art and an award by the Roostein Hopkins Foundation for excellence in drawing, funded my subsequent MA in Drawing in 2009. At the same time I was working in education for adults and young people and I retain an absolute passion for education being used as a tool to change and improve lives.

My work has been widely exhibited in both public and commercial galleries, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, Rugby Museum, The People's Museum in Manchester and the National Football Museum. I have exhibited with the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and I am a member of the Society of Graphic Fine Art. I have also worked with commercial galleries in Oxford, Bath, London, Surrey and Sussex.

what is my work about?
I grew up liking to be on my own, watching tv, reading, drawing, and generally thinking things over. Now as an adult artist the solitary experience of creating a drawing or painting moves through to the solitary experience of the viewer trying to work out what they are looking at and what it means to them. I want my work to communicate with the viewer and for the viewer to add their own history to what they see and create their own narrative from their own lives and memories. For this reason I concentrate on a section and work in detail and leave other parts out and usually have a simple background. The quiet, concentrated process of creating the work and taking as long as it takes to get it right is incredibly important to me.

themes
I like to work in series, exploring and expanding on a theme. Some themes arise due to commissions or working on projects but there are themes that I follow just because I can't resist. There is the theme based on old photographs, looking at moments in time captured, cropping, focusing in and seeing the fun and story of the moment. Since moving out of London, I have found the time to look quietly at the landscape around me, as well as butterflies, birds and the objects in my home - all have become the subject of series of works. Portraiture is a strong theme running through my work, whether due to projects or commissions and it is an area that I dip in and out of as opportunities arise. And then there is the interest that I have in women and their love of displaying their hair...

photograph by Sophie Mitchell Photography