Artists Statement
May 2026
As a painter I am concerned with the aesthetic quality of paint, mark making, the materiality of paint on the surface of the canvas.
As a photographer I am concerned with the emotion of the moment, the enclosure of time and light in the frame.
I have a longstanding relationship with the blousy and erotic peony flower. I work with my flowers from their first coy blooming though to decay. For me flowers become more beautiful as their petals become translucent in death – leaving a ‘shroud’ of richly hued stems and petals that are both intense and fragile.
The vase and floral composition are very special to me and I have worked with it often. Meaning comes from intimacy with these repetitive motifs, a constant return to the delicacy and beauty of the forms and trying to capture the mood and atmosphere and emotion. Fragility, femininity but also the longevity and strength of the ageing stems and thin transulent petals. Delicate and fragile like old paper. I am fascinated and held by the way in which petals become casts almost fossils of the flower. They leave a cast of their beauty as they die and wither. Is that a metaphor for life where we are held by the beauty of some moments that remain with us always, an invisible axis of emotion.
My work has some links to the Dutch Vanitas tradition a genre of still life painting that flourished in the 17th century, particularly during the Dutch Golden Age. The term comes from the Latin word for "vanity," referencing the biblical passage: "Vanity of vanities... all is vanity". These paintings were designed as a memento mori—a reminder of the inevitability of death and the transience of earthly pleasures. In the Dutch tradition, every object in the frame was a "secret message" about life’s brevity. The Passing of Time symbolised by hourglasses, clocks, or recently extinguished candles. Decay and Fragility, skulls were shown as a symbol of mortality, while wilting flowers represented the fleeting nature of beauty and life.
While traditional Dutch masters like Harmen Steenwyck used a meticulous, realistic style, my work adopts the philosophy of Vanitas rather than precise cutting imagery.
Traditional Vanitas used wilting flowers as a warning. My works however, finds the decaying state of flowers—what I have described as their "shroud" to be more beautiful and sculptural than their peak bloom.
I also approach flowers as 'Companions''. So unlike the 17th-century artists who often depicted objects in chaotic piles to suggest an eventual overthrow of achievement, I work with my decaying subjects as "companions," focusing on the intimacy of time passing, the melancholy and bittersweetness of life rather than aiming at a stern moral lecture.
Alongside my still life paintings I use the formalism of the self portrait as a space to investigate self, identity, and sexuality. My self-portraits are cryptic, intimate and poetic; giving glimpses of the selves I have been, might be or could be.
As a photographer I am concerned with the emotion of the moment, the enclosure of time and light in the frame.
I have a longstanding relationship with the blousy and erotic peony flower. I work with my flowers from their first coy blooming though to decay. For me flowers become more beautiful as their petals become translucent in death – leaving a ‘shroud’ of richly hued stems and petals that are both intense and fragile.
The vase and floral composition are very special to me and I have worked with it often. Meaning comes from intimacy with these repetitive motifs, a constant return to the delicacy and beauty of the forms and trying to capture the mood and atmosphere and emotion. Fragility, femininity but also the longevity and strength of the ageing stems and thin transulent petals. Delicate and fragile like old paper. I am fascinated and held by the way in which petals become casts almost fossils of the flower. They leave a cast of their beauty as they die and wither. Is that a metaphor for life where we are held by the beauty of some moments that remain with us always, an invisible axis of emotion.
My work has some links to the Dutch Vanitas tradition a genre of still life painting that flourished in the 17th century, particularly during the Dutch Golden Age. The term comes from the Latin word for "vanity," referencing the biblical passage: "Vanity of vanities... all is vanity". These paintings were designed as a memento mori—a reminder of the inevitability of death and the transience of earthly pleasures. In the Dutch tradition, every object in the frame was a "secret message" about life’s brevity. The Passing of Time symbolised by hourglasses, clocks, or recently extinguished candles. Decay and Fragility, skulls were shown as a symbol of mortality, while wilting flowers represented the fleeting nature of beauty and life.
While traditional Dutch masters like Harmen Steenwyck used a meticulous, realistic style, my work adopts the philosophy of Vanitas rather than precise cutting imagery.
Traditional Vanitas used wilting flowers as a warning. My works however, finds the decaying state of flowers—what I have described as their "shroud" to be more beautiful and sculptural than their peak bloom.
I also approach flowers as 'Companions''. So unlike the 17th-century artists who often depicted objects in chaotic piles to suggest an eventual overthrow of achievement, I work with my decaying subjects as "companions," focusing on the intimacy of time passing, the melancholy and bittersweetness of life rather than aiming at a stern moral lecture.
Alongside my still life paintings I use the formalism of the self portrait as a space to investigate self, identity, and sexuality. My self-portraits are cryptic, intimate and poetic; giving glimpses of the selves I have been, might be or could be.