statement
Through drawing and performance, walking and photography, I map my interior and exterior journeys. Waking up in the dark, I run through the woods and fields in the half light of dawn, crossing sensory and psychological boundaries.
These attempts to capture the rush of the ephemeral result in the trampling of sacred ground. The pursuit causes devastation, in that all too human way of corrupting beauty through insatiable appetites.
My search for intimacy in nature embodies the desire for connection and the frustration of separation. I ask the land what it can teach me about how to meet the world in a female body.
How to live through celebration, objectification, and degradation? Can I break out of what restricts me? Can I break through to something bigger than myself?
The work that results holds tensions between presence and absence, exposure and retreat, frailty and strength.
career and education
2000-2007 – My early career as a maker followed my interest in connecting with the environment through site-specific work. I created sculptural installations for Thomas Heatherwick in London, Marcel Wanders in Amsterdam, Atelier Van Lieshout in Rotterdam, Niall O’Flynn and Jordi Veciana in Barcelona. While learning a lot during that time, in realising others’ ideas I missed a sense of a personal dialogue with the landscape.
2008-2016 – While working as a designer in the US, Ecuador, The Netherlands, and Spain, I wrote about design and sustainability for online and print publications, forging a deeper connection to the natural world and strengthening my commitment to environmental issues. On returning to the UK, I focused my work on climate research and social innovation. Through my design practice, Elio Studio Ltd, I created exhibitions and participatory installations to generate conversations about climate change in public spaces.
2015-2017 – Missing the joy I found in making for myself, I returned to a personal art practice, refracting my interests in the environment and interactive spaces through my experience of navigating womanhood. With the idea of putting my own body in the centre of my installations, I entered graduate school to study somatic movement and performance. There I created drawing performances about power dynamics, physical impact and the occupation of space.
2019-2021 – I gained my MFA in Creative Practice from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance (2019), adding to my BA in Design from Goldsmiths College (2004), and my MA (hons) in History of Art from Edinburgh University (2000). Now I regularly teach Body as a Research Tool workshops as a Visiting Lecturer for the Goldsmiths College, Trinity Laban, and Bath Spa University.
Recently, I relocated my life and practice from London to Somerset, where the rural landscape has swiftly embedded itself into my work.