As a painter I extract figures from photographs from the pre-digital age as a starting point. These can be found family photographs or home movies. Watching these personal films I instinctively stop them on frames that resonate. The images I am most often drawn to related to peoples roles in society, the hierarchies and dynamics of power. I paint with a strong idea of colour to begin. I use both oil and acrylic paint, alongside charcoal and pencil drawings. My background as a printmaker informs my use of layers and structure, yet I allow the process to move and evolve the work as it is constructed. Loose and textured painterly marks exist alongside more precise detail. A strong grounding in portrait and figure drawing gives freedom to describe or suggest. Looking back into our recent past is an act of remembering and nostalgic mis-remembering, with photographs and lm becoming the vehicle which constructs stories about ourselves. Figures are often rewritten or falling from clear view, and I use digital processes to reconstruct the scenes and suggest colour themes. Our history instructs, seduces and tethers us, and I look to use paint to examine these emotive memories which reflect current themes and tensions in contemporary life.

EDUCATION

• BA Fine Art (printmaking) - Glasgow School of Art 1997

• MA Fine Art - Brighton University 2001

• PGCE Art & Design 2002

Solo & group EXHiBITIONS

• 2025 Guest Presenter Sky Arts ‘Artists Masterclasses’

• 2025 Judge for Sussex portrait Artist of the Year

• 2025 Solo Show Cameron Contemporary Art Brighton

• 2025 Solo Show Tambaran 2 Gallery New York •

• 2024 Solo Show ‘Souvenir’ - Lido Stores Margate

• 2024 Cass Art Prize - Shortlisted

• 2024 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition

• 2024 Green and Stone Gallery Open Call

• 2024 Brighton College Commission - seven paintings

• 2024 Group Show Tambaran 2 Gallery, New York

• 2024 Winter Show Stratford Gallery UK

• 2023 Evidence - solo show at Cameron Contemporary

• 2023 Royal Society of Portrait Painters , London

• 2023 Royal Institute of Watercolour Painters , London

• 2022/3 Society of Scottish Artists 130th Annual Exhibition – Commissioned piece responding to Edvard Munch

• 2022 October – Sussex Contemporary at the i360 Brighton

• 2022 November – ING Discerning Eye at the Mall Galleries, London

• 2022 September Figures Group Show Cameron Contemporary, Hove

• 2022 July - Beep Contemporary, Swansea

• 2022 August – Oxmarket Contemporary Open – Chichester

• 2022 July Atelier Brighton Open Call

• 2022 Trinity Buoy Wharf Gallery , London - Group Show

• 2022  March ‘Time & Place’ with Jane Campling, Cameron Contemporary, Hove

• 2021 Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year

• 2021 Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize Exhibition

• 2021 Tate Livestream Portrait of Cornelia Parker

• 2019 Winter Show, Cameron Contemporary Art

• 2019 Fresh Paint, a 6-person show of new artists at Cameron Contemporary Art

• 2019  gnt gallery Eastbourne Solo Show

• 2019  Summer Show at Cameron Contemporary Art

• 2018  Gallery 31 Brighton Solo Show

• 2005-2019 Brighton Open Houses May Exhibition, various venues

• 2003  Artist in Residence Croydon College

• 1998 Royal West of England Show

  Recent notable events include appearing on Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year ’21, and accepted for the 2021 Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize. In March 2021 she conducted a livestream portrait painting session for the Tate Instagram. She was chosen to respond to Edvard Munch print for Society of Scottish Artists 22/23 Annual Show. In 2024 she exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Show and in early 2025 she is a guest Presenter for two episodes of Sky Arts ‘Artist Masterclasses’.