Biography
Back to basics. Drawings. Felt tip pen on toilet paper. Clay with marks. Charcoal directly onto bare canvas. Snippets. Each drawing is a fleeting idea put down. An anecdote, a passing thought. A joke. A retelling of a story.
In 2015 I left my native country and my life in London, UK in order to be able to stay with my husband who is originally from Colombia. We moved to Berlin, Germany, to stay together and start again. The involuntary experience of moving to a new country in order to build a new life has been intrinsic to the work I have made in the subsequent period.
The everyday is fundamental to my work. This act of being forced into a new environment, a new culture, a new way of seeing the world was difficult to adjust to, so the everyday spaces I created for myself in my work became incredibly valuable, a way of coping with the events around me. The tiny moments got glued to the timeless ones.
For me, my work itself has become the safe haven to deal with these everyday changes, struggles and challenges of displacement. Although work primarily takes the form of paintings and drawings, it is in the loosest sense of these terms that this is true. Everything is up for grabs as a material, objecthood itself holding particular value within my practice. Paintings are displayed propped on blocks not hung directly on the wall, presented with carefully chosen additions, they become shrines to the everyday experience. Symbols and slogans repeat themselves again and again in the work, the symbol of the cat carrying distinct importance, it takes on the role of protector. Humour is also a vital element in the work manifesting itself as a vehicle for deeper, more political or challenging messages.
There is no separation between my art and my life. They feed one another like a snake eating her own tail, but instead of getting smaller somehow she grows and stretches from both ends.
