My history, my past, my present. I make portraits that engage with issues around identity and social documentary. I focus on snapshot compositions, saturated colour and incidental objects to help set the scene of everyday life. I want my work to feel edgy, to seduce the viewer into contemplating ambiguous tension, a sense of emptiness, boredom and anxiety. These works are often large scale to create presence and intensify personal stories. Using gritty expression and garish colour, I want to create images about human relationships that are both dysfunctional and tender. Most recently I have been focusing on a series of self portraits which evolved from a solo show at MOMA Wales titled ‘All the things I could have been’ I painted self-portraits that saw myself in all the scenarios my life could have taken. I was a Nun, a Swimmer, A disco dancer and an alcoholic to name a few. I grew up in a house where addiction was present, and this will always influence my work. A fight for acceptance maybe or a or a way to tell all the stories I could never tell.
