I am a visual artist, based in The Trossachs, working from my home studio. I am a mixed media artist, predominantly utilising acrylic paints, pencil, pastel, and collage. I have experimented with upcycling and reusing items as surfaces for my art works, and I am planning to expand on this as I am passionate about minimising my environmental impact and following my ethical values towards reusing and championing a more resourceful approach.

My formal art training includes attending Edinburgh College of Art (1994 - 1996) where I studied a wide variety of artistic practices including drawing, painting, life-drawing, sculpture and design, before specialising in fashion design in my 2nd year. In addition, I studied Graphic Design at Falkirk College, which informed my work in Creative Direction and Product Design for an eco-packaging company. I am also skilled in craft-based mediums, and from 2016, I ran a jewellery business that created up-cycled, beaded, unique pieces. This variety of skills, training, and experience is integral to my approach to making work and informs my mixed-media methodology.

A critical point in my artistic development occurred in 2015, after developing a chronic pain condition. At that time, as a person with lived-experience of mental health, as well as undiagnosed Autism and ADHD, Art Therapy became integral to my healing journey, but also my artistic development. In fact, it was during my time whilst engaging with art therapy that I learned to see myself as an artist, profoundly impacting the kind of artwork I make to this day.

For the last decade, I have been making paintings that, in many ways, are a palimpsest of all of my lived experiences, including autism, ADHD, CPTSD, mental health, art therapy, and my formative art training. My works are usually large scale, although I do make smaller scale works and prints for the domestic market. In my larger works particularly, I place the canvas on the floor, as opposed to the wall. Working on a horizontal plane gives me a freedom of movement and physicality that enables me to be more gestural and expressive. 

I align this approach to painting with the practice of Automatism and Action Painting, which works less from conscious thought or planning, but seeks to allow the unconscious mind to express itself in the process of painting. It is a dance between conscious expression and artistic / aesthetic sensibilities. Utilising an Automatistic and Action Painting approach, has become a key methodology for me to process trauma, and allow subconscious emotions, memories and affects to rise to the surface. 

As such, I am keen to contextualise my work as a therapeutic practice. Albeit, in an art-based, rather than clinical, context. I am keen to promote the use of artistic expression as part of a holistic approach to processing and integrating trauma. Furthermore, whilst the process of painting is therapeutic for me, I would also hope that the experience of encountering my work is therapeutic for the viewer themselves.