I am a scientist by training having studied Zoology at the University of Leeds before embarking on a research career investigating the biomechanical properties of mammalian tendons. I taught animal form and function, biomechanics and anatomy in several universities for over 20 years. It was early in my university career that I fell in love with life-drawing and the use of charcoal. I left academia in 2016 in order to develop my art practice.
 

As a biologist I am interested in the functional morphology of living organisms. Structure and function cannot be separated, rather they are inextricably linked by universal physical laws (gravity, motion, diffusion for instance) and the material properties defined by those laws (such as strength, stiffness and elasticity). Our view of the biological world is often one of the external form, but as nature decays, previously hidden, internal structures are revealed through a complex system of decomposition.

 

My art practice has grown out of an interest in both this materiality and the process by which it changes. I am fascinated in what has been left behind: I collect traces of what once was. These can be physical, such as pieces of skeleton, a rock or a fragment of rusted metal, or something more ephemeral such as a memory or a transient mark left in the sand at low tide. These traces act as mementos of a different time and place. By collecting them I link them to the present, creating both spatial and temporal narrative.

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I am a member of the artist’s co-operative The Gallery at the Guild in Chipping Campden and am currently studying part-time for a degree in Painting with the Open College of Arts.