Biography
My practice lies between drawing and participation, informed by the social history of places, and by a direct engagement with the individuals who occupy them. Central to my work is the exchange of local knowledge and personal experiences, memories, folklore and myths between myself and the people within a particular place, situation or context. The information gathered from these exchanges, and the process of exchange itself, is playfully articulated in meticulously detailed pencil drawings and performances captured in video.
My video installations investigate interactions between individuals looking and being looked at, while the pencil drawings unravel imaginary landscapes assembled from personal information. The changing scales interwoven into the fabric of the drawings create a fictionalized space in which incongruous perceptions of time and place coexist.
I swap between a socially active period of gathering research to the private space of the studio where an intimacy between maker and object is formed. The memories, anecdotes and stories inspiring the drawings are handled with a delicate sensitivity resonating with private and personal conversations.
The Cut is the culmination of a yearlong artist project commissioned by SPACE, 2011, about the Lea River Navigation Canal and the communities affected by the Olympic development in East London. The 5 metre long pencil drawing responds to the industrial history of the area and is inspired by oral history interviews, gathered by volunteers, from local people who live or work along the canal.
