Personal Statement

Not so long ago on a cold november afternoon around 4.23pm when people were sitting around drinking tea and eating cake, i arrived in the world blue eyed and a mop of hair.

I spent the first years of my life running around causing havoc in my delightful NHS spectacles and big gappy teeth. I got my brother into trouble by graffiting his name all over the house- on the walls, under the table in the kitchen.

The first thing i remember making was a pig at primary school using the timeless method of a balloon and lots of paper mache. Sadly when i was making my pig i couldn't attach the egg carton nose like everyone else, so instead i painted my pig a bright cerise instead.

20 years later the same pig sits in my old home proud that he didn't conform.

I carried on creating things with the same artistic flare. Christmas robins made out of sugar paper halloween ghosts and skeletons with moveable limbs;scary hairy spiders. My first ever screen print of a panda eating some bamboo.

During my secondary school my love of art grew. After experimenting with print making on my GNVQ i knew then i had found my tool for expressing myself.

In 1998 i started my printmaking degree and this is where i started my journey of writing etching bookbinding and paper-making.

After graduating in 2001 fate threw me a new life line of a post grad course in printmaking in brighton. So i finally flew the coop leaving behind my family who helped me grow and inspired me. Everything was new scary and exciting. I wrote my two stories about the seaslug man and pigeon girl which both became my animations and comics.

I experimented with animation on my post grad using all the formal elements that i had learnt from printmaking to create work that used line tone and depth.

So i decided to stay here as it felt like home even though i missed my family.

But i had found my feet and so it had begun.