As the virus storm turned into a blizzard we all sheltered, we holed-up, we waited it out. An eerie crisp dawn beckoned, a raw dark event horizon, spawning fresh ‘pre’ and ‘post’ dual parlances; pre-covid, post-covid; pre-lockdown, post- lockdown. As confinement continued to rumble, the ‘pre-covid’ or ‘pre-lockdown’ discourses faded, submerged in a dense fog – a strange bizarre sensation of feeling like the events of a month ago actually occurred many years ago. Time was behaving obtusely, our new cave-dwelling internment was crystallising our inter-relationship with structured time. The suppressive, coercive weekly linguistic loop (days of the week) mutated, becoming irrelevant, null-and-void, obsolete. Certainly from my own perspective from the outset every day radiated that melancholic, dreary Monday feeling, the week refusing to splutter into motion. Constant exposure to bleak global news helped to commission, to certify, to authorise one’s own dark thoughts. Dwelling on one’s own mortality became step one in the book of how to deal with a pandemic; reviewing ones own life was step two. Whilst listening to Robert Macfarlane’s Underland (via audiobook) a line ironically glows brightly, “Here in the shadows, space and time spill into one another”. When normal life is interrupted and paused, time’s choir sings an array of diverse pulses, without rhythm, and we can start to listen to time’s true identity.

Pre-lockdown my work had been drenched for years in dialogues surrounding repetition. I was fascinated with multi-layered aesthetics and mesmeric semantic-satiation, but through the bleakness of my fresh reality, repetition would be stripped back to its underlying component flow, ‘time’. My aesthetic focus shifted to interrogating that interplay between constructed time used to govern our existence (which I would dub as ‘anthropomorphised time’) and the poetic breathing complexities of organic time; mechanic versus organic.

Education

MA, Contemporary Art Practice: Moving Image, Royal College of Art, London, 2021
B.A.Hons, Fine Art,  Colchester School of Art and Design, 2003
BTEC Foundation Diploma, Fine Art, Colchester School of Art and Design, 2000

Awards/Grants

Graduate scholarship award, 2003-2004, Cuckoo Farm Studios, Colchester.
Grants For The Arts, Arts Council England Funding for ‘Fallen (The seasonal Sound of Senescence)’, residency, September 2010 – May 2011.
Grants For The Arts, Arts Council England funding for ‘Butterfly Effect’ Sept 2014-Jan 2015, collaboration with sculptor Em Milner, facilitated by firstsite, working with SEN school children. 

Commission’s/Residency’s/Projects

RAMxRCA – Royal Academy of Music, London, 2021
Llosgi Gwynt – Aberystwyth Arts Centre, project exploring Wind Power in the Aberytstwyth area, spring 2015
Power In The Land  – Anglesey, project exploring the decommissioning of Wylfa nuclear power plant, 2014-ongoing
Butterfly Effect – supported by firstsite and Arts Council England, 2014
Artist In Residence, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Wales, 3 months, 2013
‘Soundworks’ ICA, Sound commission, 2012 (nominated by firstsite)
Re:place, Level Centre, Rowsley, Peak District 2011
Fallen (Seasonal Sound of Senescence), CADE (Centre for the Art and Design in the Environment), Writtle College, Residency 2010-11, Supported by Arts Council England (and by firstsite)
Footfall, Cuckoo Farm Studios, Colchester, Residency 2010
15 Days 15 Artists, firstsite, Colchester, 2009
‘Journey To The Podium’, working with Olympian Chloe Rogers (Hockey), Essex County Council and 2012 Legacy Team, commission, 2009.
Short listed for Loch Lomond and Trossach’s National Park Residency, 2013

Exhibition History 

(Group unless stated)

2021
RCA Final Show, Cromwell Place, London
Oriel Lockdown, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Wales
Everything Forever, Online (Everythingforever.net), London

2020
RAMxRCA, Royal Academy of Music, London
WiP RCA, Royal College of Art, Battersea, London

2017
Phantom, Ruskin Gallery, Cambridge
Power In The Land, Bay Arts, Cardiff, Wales

2016
Power In The Land – Aberystwyth Arts Centre (May – June)
Power In The Land – Oriel Davies, Newtown (March-April)

2015
Power In The Land – Modern Art Oxford (talk and screening)
Shell – The Old Spode Works, Stoke-on-Trent
Chelmsford: Still Loves Radio – Industrial Unit, Anne Knight Spaces, Chelmsford, Essex

2014
Butterfly Effect – firstsite, Colchester
I Like This Place and Would Willingly Waste My Time In It – Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth, Wales

2013
Chateau Marmot, pop up restaurant, London
Kast Et Blik, Kunstpakhuset, Ikast, Denmark
Open Studios, End Of Residency Show, Aberystwyth Arts Centre Studios.

2012
Journey To The Podium, Houses of Parliament, London.
Soundworks, ICA, London,
Last Friday Night Shorts, TAP, Southend-on-Sea
Journey To The Podium, Gibbert Gallery, Southend on Sea

2011
17 Days, The Brett Llewellyn Art Gallery, Alfred State college, Alfred NY, USA
Journey to the Podium, Rayleigh Windmill, Essex
Fallen, Writtle College, Essex, SOLO (End of residency, collaboration with plant scientists Ron Fryer and Margaret Somerville)
17 Days, Frostic Gallery, Kalamazoo, MI, USA

2010
Fallen pt 1, Writtle College, Essex SOLO
Journey To The Podium, Gibberd Gallery, Harlow, Essex
Media Façade Festival Europe, Collegium Hungaricum, Berlin, Germany
Outside 2010, Collaboration with Danish artist Stephanie Donsø, Colchester
Footfall, End of residency show, Benham Gallery, Colchester
Journey To The Podium, WH Community Stadium, Colchester
4day Exhibition, Kings Place Theatre, London, SOLO
Swimming Without Water, Moseley Rd Baths, Birmingham

2009
15 Days 15 Artists, firstsite, Colchester, Essex
Exposure, TAP, Southend-on-Sea, Essex
Open Studios, The Benham Gallery, Colchester, Essex
Seing Sound, Bath University, Bath
Essex Summer of Art, Hylands House, Chelmsford, Essex
Transition, The Bargehouse, Oxo Tower Wharf, London
Urban Screens Shorts, Rotterdam International Film Festival, Rotterdam, Netherlands

2008
Wide Open, Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, Illinois, USA
Winter Lights, Benham Gallery, Colchester
St Hamilton School Auction, St Hamilton School, Colchester
Over Bakke Og Dal…, Mosting Hus, Copenhagen, Denmark
The Streaming Festival, Online, The Hague, Netherlands
Urban Screens 08, Fed Square, Melbourne, Australia
Sound:Space, Digital Media Centre, Bracknell, Berks
Cuckoo Farm Studios Show, The Benham Gallery, Colchester
Open Studio Exhibition, Life Gallery Cafe, Colchester
Prelude Art Fair, Spitalfields, London
Season 3, Outcasting.org, Online Video Exhibition
Mona Lisa Project, Essex University Gallery, Colchester
“Long Established Mediums Harmonize with New Media”, The Lloyd Gill Gallery, Weston-super-Mare, Somerset
Cuckoo Farm Studios Show, Life Gallery, Colchester.
“An Emotional Journey”, Mansfield Museum, Mansfield, Notts.
“InterAlia”, Abandoned shop, Chelmsford, Essex.

2007
“Mini Print 2007”, Artlink Gallery, Hull, Kingston-upon-Hull.
“Winter Lights”,The Benham Gallery, Colchester, Essex.
Video Art Showcase 2007, St Mary, Key Arts, Ipswich, Suffolk.
“Worldwide Moving Image 3”,  E32, New York City, USA.
“Enclosure”, The Benham Gallery, Colchester, Essex.
“Replenish”, Saltburn Gallery, Saltburn-by-the-Sea, Redcar and Cleveland.
Sonic Ripples, Hector Croot, Estate Agents, Colchester, Essex. SOLO
Cuckoo Farm Studios Show, Naze Tower, Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex.
Open Studios Exhibition, Life Gallery Cafe, Colchester, Essex.
Open Studios, Cuckoo Farm Studios, Colchester, Essex.
“Prelude” Art Fair, Spitalfields, London.

2006
“Winter Lights”, The Benham Gallery, Cuckoo Farm Studios, Essex.
‘Echoing Ur Sound’, Benham Gallery, Colchester, Essex. SOLO
Open Studios Xmas Show, Life Gallery Café, Colchester, Essex.
Open Studios Show, Life Gallery Café, Colchester, Essex.

2005
Cuckoo Farm Studios Show, The Babylon Gallery, Ely, Cambridgeshire.
“Winter Lights”, The Benham Gallery, Colchester, Essex
Cuckoo Farm Studios Show, Life Gallery Cafe, Colchester, Essex.
Cuckoo Farm Studios Show, The Pond Gallery,Snape Maltings, Suffolk.
Cuckoo Farm studios Show, The Minories, Colchester, Essex.

2004
“Winter Lights”, The Benham Gallery, Colchester, Essex.
Cuckoo Farm Studios Show, Inkpen Downie, Colchester, Essex.
Sonic Circled, Benham Gallery, Colchester, Essex. SOLO
Sonic Circles, Hay Gallery, Colchester, Essex. SOLO
Outside, Cuckoo Farm Studios, Colchester, Essex.
Print Show, The Benham Gallery, Colchester, Essex.
Cuckoo Farm Studios Show, Buckenham Gallery, Southwold,  Suffolk.

2003
Winter Lights, Benham Gallery, Colchester, Essex.
Free Range, Graduate Show, Old Truman Brewery, London.
Graduate Show, Colchester School of Art, Essex.
Untitled Show, Life Gallery Cafe, Colchester, Essex.

 

Curator

Events organiser for Cuckoo Farm Studios 2011
Open Studios Show 2009, Cuckoo Farm Studios (alongside Hazel Harvey)
Outside 09, Outdoor new media trail, supported by ACE and firstsite, 2009, as part of a cross mentorship scheme alongside Linda Theophilus.
‘Tiny Little Echoes’, Sound Curator, Artselector.com, Aug-Sept 2008
Surrounds: Outside 2008, Art Trail, Cuckoo Farm Studios, Aug/Sept 2008
Winter Lights 2008, Cuckoo Farm Studios (alongside Pam Schomberg)
Short listed for CD:EK, Kent curatorial commission, 2010
Short Listed, Beyond the Frame, ECC, curatorial commission, 2010
Running ‘The Benham Gallery’ 2011 – Liz Lake Residency, Rachael Allen Residency, Open Studios Showcase, 2011

 

Talks, Interviews, Extras.

Power In The Land – publication (Mar 2016)
Tim Skinner: Impressionism in a digital age by Jen Loffman, 2015
Tim Skinner and the Wind of Controversy, CCQ web, June 2015
Notes From Wales, AxisWeb publication on Power in the Land
Butterfly Effect interview with Colchester Gazette
Butterfly Effect workshops with primary s SEN school children at firstsite
Butterfly Effect live talk BBC radio Essex
My practice, talk, Aberystwyth School of Art.
My practice, residency talk, Aberystwyth Arts Centre
Soundworks, ICA, online talk, 19th July, 2012
Mentioned in Wallpaper magazine in regards to ICA exhibition. 2012
Tutoring student, painting and drawing techniques.
Running The Benham Gallery
National Art Competition, region of the month, June 2011, Online
ArtMonthly, Advert, May 2011, pg1
AN Magazine, April 2011, pg19
Headed up a cross mentoring curatorial initiative between Essex University and Cuckoo Farm Studios 2011.
AN Blog, 2010
Member of firstsite artist crit group 2010 – 2012
Part of Firstsite’ Artist Support Programme. 2009
Running CFS Graduate Award Scheme 2010
Member of Cuckoo Farm Studios Events Team, 2010
Interview for Arts East magazine, 2010
Interview BBC radio Essex, for Journey To The Podium, 2010
Firstsite talk ‘cross mentoring scheme’, 2010
‘Far Away Rhythm (two years in video)’, book publication, 2010
Cuckoo Farm Studios Committee member (webmaster/graduate award/events 2009-2012)
Ran a talk with 1st year MA art teaching students, in respect to Outside Curatorial practice, 2009
Ran a talk with BA graduates in respect to graduate scholarship at Cuckoo Farm Students, 2009
Invigilation work for Firstsite, 2009
Interview with BBC Radio Essex, 2008
Curatorial interview with EADT, 2008
Interview with Essex County Standard and EADT (East Anglian Daily Times), 2004
Featured on Echobelly’s official bands website, 2001