Residencies
Aldeburgh Beach Lookout, Suffolk 2024
From under the water, bells still toll. There is a mythology that comes up again and again, that towns lost to the sea have church bells that continue to toll. Researching these ‘drowned towns’ including Dunwich in Suffolk, my residency at Aldeburgh Beach Lookout in October will culminate in a multi media installation blending large scale drawings, archive objects and sound pieces.
You can follow the progress of this project here.
Cill Rialaig, Ireland 2019
Perched on the edge of the Atlantic, Cill Rialaig in Co. Kerry is a group of sparse stone cottages devoted to short term artist residencies. The wildness, the remoteness and the monastic feel of the place made it a unique opportunity to focus solely on my work. I used it as an opportunity to work undisturbed by daily life and other commitments. I wrote endlessly, reflecting on where my work had been and where I thought it might go. I looked at ideas of ascension and return. For 2 weeks I worked in the studio cottage and in the landscape, taking giant cut outs of arms outside and watching them come alive in the wind. Inside, I made large paintings on paper exploring the idea of raw endings leading to new beginnings. The Cill Rialaig experience was extraordinary and the opportunity led to a new direction in my work.
Poetry in Aldeburgh Festival 2017
As artist in residence at Poetry in Aldeburgh Festival, I brought the evolving piece ‘Message in a Bottle’ to a new context. Installing the drawn films, paintings and interactive message bottles in a new space behind reclaimed panelled windows. Here the recordings of hospital patients in isolation with the messages written by visitors to the piece created a call-and-response interaction that felt perfect for a Poetry Festival.
Royal Brompton Hospital 2013 - 2017
Working with the excellent in-house arts team, rb&hArts, I worked remotely with cystic fibrosis patients at the Fulham Road site of Royal Brompton Hospital. This project, called ‘Island Collaborations’ took recordings from CF patients who would experience long stays isolated from other patients with their condition due to specific cross-infection risks. Using recordings made by my facilitators at rb&hArts and photos taken by the patients, I made an evolving and dynamic body of work that details lives lived in parallel.
The first outcome was an exhibition, ‘Island Collaborations’ in the hospital and in Chelsea Old Town Hall. The work developed to include drawn film and interactive performance in a piece called ‘Message in a Bottle’ installed inside the hospital, part of Health & Wellbeing Week and In-Transit Festival and later at Poetry in Aldeburgh Festival 2017. You can see a video of Message in a Bottle here. The project blog is here.
Queen Mary University, Dept of Neuroscience 2014
As part of Art Neuro, a project linking artists and neuroscientists, I collaborated with Dr Matt Parker at QMU. Matt was looking at the genes that predispose people to addictive behaviour, using zebrafish (their brains are a simpler version of ours). As an outcome, I created playful drawings and paintings that took inspiration from Hogarth’s 19th Century etching ‘Gin Lane’, overlaying on the characters the parts of the brain involved in addictive behaviours and transposing the characters to a modern day setting. I also designed a lottery scratch card featuring the zebrafish where scratching off the panels to reveal all four main stimulant neurochemicals would win you a prize. I love science collaborations, the lateral thinking required to transpose academic ideas into an experience that the public can engage with is really exciting. The talks I gave about the project at SciBar and later at Senate House allowed me to share that in a new way.
Papworth Hospital, Dept of Cardiothoracic Surgery 2008-2010
After graduating from CGLAS, I had the extraordinary opportunity to be artist in residence with heart surgeon Mr Francis Wells at Papworth Hospital. I was present, with my sketchbooks, at many open heart surgeries and made hundreds of drawings. The way that a large group of medical practitioners work seemingly symbiotically to correct one small point in the human body was a privilege to watch. As an artist, my experience of life drawing set me up for understanding the way the bodies of the practitioners moved. Drawing people in motion means making quick decisions and is a practice full of energy that comes through in the drawings.