Biography

1966 Born near Wolverhampton.
1986-‘90 University of Newcastle upon Tyne (Fine Art).
1990-’91 Voluntary work at Art Therapy centre, Ely hospital, Cardiff.
1993-‘94 Conservation of medieval painted ceiling vault, Clare Island, Co. Mayo, Ireland.
1994-‘96 Nine exhibitions and commissions in England and Ireland.
1997,1998 Birth of my two daughters.
1999-‘06 Work became influenced by my daughters.
2006, 2008 Exhibited through SAW (Somerset Art Weeks).
2009 and 2010 Exploratory studio practices, Co. Kerry, Ireland.
2009-’11 Exhibited work through ‘Seed’, Frome, ‘Gray Modern and Contemporary Art’, Moorwood House, Bruton and ‘Yew Tree Gallery’, Cornwall.
2011, 2012 ‘Angels without Wings’ and ‘A Christmas Exhibition’ at the Walcot Chapel gallery, Bath.
2012  SAW studio exhibition.

I remember the simple pleasure I felt when colouring with oil pastels and felt pens on sugar paper. For many years I have tried to recreate this memory. I have wanted to achieve the direct, bold, inventive, inquisitive nature of my childhood drawings. During this struggle I realized that I was looking for an element of freedom that could perhaps only be experienced in those early years; a lost innocence. Life events have since perpetuated this search and consequently it is central to my work.

I made the first papier mache standing angel whilst studying Fine Art at Newcastle upon Tyne University, from 1986-90. I liked spending time in the quiet refuge of the city graveyards and kept returning to an eroded carving of a flying angel on one of the headstones. I discovered that it afforded me the freedom to paint beyond what I saw in reality. The angel flew over the graveyard and I began to use it, alongside my self portraits, for convenient reference in my work. The standing angel was based on a photograph of myself, wearing Grandma’s nightie. After university, it travelled around with me; getting bashed and repaired it grew in significance. I continued to explore expressions of myself: with halo; with wings; sculpted as a flying angel.

Over 20 years later, I made eight more standing angels from a mould taken from the original, to form an exhibition at the Walcot Chapel gallery in Bath in 2011. It was a project that enabled me to deal with having breast cancer and the effects of chemotherapy. Looking at my work from this perspective, it became apparent to me that the compulsion I had to paint and sculpt angels as myself, was not separate from my yearning to draw like I did as a child. It was a way of rediscovering my sense of self. The elemental rawness that I sought in my work was the angel within me – not lost to me, but always present and accessible during those moments of letting go.