I am a contemporary artist, designer and gilder, holding an MA in Illustration from Falmouth University.
My creative practice focusses primarily on depicting beauty in the natural world. Through observational studies I explore plant and flower life, approaching my subjects with scientific rigour rather than romantic idealisation, to unveil the subtle complexities and dynamic forms of the imperfect perfect.
My work uses gold and precious metals to create large scale luxurious and opulent original pieces, employing a style derived from classical painting and naturalist illustration techniques.
Early songs
At around age 4, my family moved out of London to begin a life living deep in the remote countryside, surrounded by birds and pets and endless plant life. My father was an engineer, a pilot and a deep sea diver who worked away on oil rigs, and my mother stayed at home looking after us. She was young when they married, a devoted disciple of Romanticism in poetry and art, an avid gardener, music, film and nature lover. She taught me names of plants and birds and artists and writers and how to love the natural world for what it was.
Our cottage was filled with Pre-Raphaelite art, and walls of books, mainly poetry. Drawing was a compulsory activity, and I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere without having a sketchbook and supplies. At all times. ‘If you’ve got your sketchbook you’ll never be bored’ was drummed into me.
My mother would continually give me impossible drawing challenges (possibly so I would leave her alone!) which I would tackle with gusto. Draughtsmanship skills were of high importance and the critique was brutal. But I still loved these challenges, it was an ongoing conversation that worked between our two very different personalities, and the goal was always to make her smile.
She always struggled with her mental health, and in reading Keats and Shelley she seemed to find connection. I was always trying to find new ways to bring sunshine to her melancholic episodes. From an early age, I guess I got hooked on the process of making things to light a person up. Bringing joy with what I can make, has always been the motivation behind my work.
Dovetail
I’m alone in the garden drawing, or sitting somewhere painting. Or squishing up plants to make ink. Animals wandering around me, cats, dogs, rabbits. Every memory of my childhood the sun shines and the space is mine, it’s peaceful and filled with beauty and wonder.
When my father returns from being away, my world suddenly becomes more lively and it disturbs the balance we’ve created… he doesn’t care for the arts or see any point in painting, or books or films. But he has other things to teach me.
I’ll wander into his workshop where he’ll be building something. My father lives 100% in the present, he’s full of action and adventure with an entirely logical brain. He lives by ‘measure twice cut once’ - a standard of working from his own father, who was a Master Carpenter.
My father takes things apart completely and puts them back together to understand how they work. Nothing is done at speed, the understanding and knowledge gain is always the goal. I’m rarely allowed to help, but I like watching, and the quiet of the workshop.
The day I fell in love
A friend of my parents owned a large plant nursery and they’d gone into liquidation. I was about age 12. My mother had a call to say that if we wanted to come down that morning they were giving away the remaining plants, but we had to get there immediately. This memory is vivid - arriving at these huge deserted glasshouses in the middle of nowhere, a hot and dry day in August, there was sand and dust and an eerie emptiness while clusters of people were silently scooping up armfuls of plants to take away. I left my mother with the shrubs and roses, while I wondered into the tropical plant house.
A wall of hot humid air hit my face, everywhere giant green leaves, all haphazardly squished together. I remember the feeling of my heart beating harder with the beauty in front of me and the excited anticipation of gathering up as many as I could save. I hated that we had to leave so many behind. They all had so much personality. I took those plants home, and from then on I was hooked.
That’s the day I fell in love with the quiet company of tropical plants, life just feels better when they’re around.
Biophilia Hypothesis
(The) idea that humans possess an innate tendency to seek connections with nature and other forms of life. The term biophilia was used by German-born American psychoanalyst Erich Fromm in The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973), which described biophilia as “the passionate love of life and of all that is alive.” The term was later used by American biologist Edward O. Wilson in his work Biophilia (1984), which proposed that the tendency of humans to focus on and to affiliate with nature and other life-forms has, in part, a genetic basis.
(Rogers, Kara. "biophilia hypothesis". Encyclopedia Britannica, 13 Jun. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/science/biophilia-hypothesis. Accessed 23 April 2024).
Painting from nature is not copying the object, it's realising one's sensations.
― Paul Cezanne
The finest materials
I gained a passion for understanding and appreciating the technical aspects of materials from my father, and from the master craftsman who taught me how to gild using traditional techniques.
It’s part of my DNA to ‘take apart’ the process, to create the highest quality work I’m capable of producing. Which means only ever using the finest materials from authentic manufacturers. They need to genuinely care about producing quality products using traditional methods that stand the test of time.
I research every item I use, and I’m always digging around to explore and rejuvenate creative processes that have been practiced and proven for centuries by the old masters and master artisans. I'm as much driven by the craft and classical methods of painting, as the image making itself.
CURIOSITY
is the foundation of all my work. As an observational painter it’s all a preoccupation with wanting to understand why something is, by translating what I see and feel onto the canvas. When it exists in paint, I feel a relief and understanding, and that particular question has been answered. Usually half way through this investigation, the next ‘question’ springs in my head, and so it goes on.
There are common themes that I repeatedly circle around within my creative practice, but essentially I’m just seeking out my own subjective view of beauty. Tropical plants and flowers always dominate, trees, often birds, animals, there are natural history and naturalistic illustration themes, and art history influences where there’s opulence and ornament, in particular Japanese 15th-17th century gilded screens, Neoclassicism, and European portraiture late 17th to early 18th century,.
I don’t feel it’s important to me to know why I’m consistently drawn to any of these subjects, or why the urge to bring my understanding of them into existence is so overwhelming. Perhaps it’s just all about capturing Time; my experience of the beauty I see, in my tiny moment within time. But there’s only so much taking apart you can do in the process before you let some of it just be inexplicable, magic.
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Starting in September 2025, I will be mailing out a quarterly email announcing small paintings available for purchase to special subscribers.
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I have an online store here with smaller works for immediate direct-to-collector sale.
