Spring 2016

I avoid referring to myself as any ‘type’ of artist, but my fundamental medium is performance. Despite this, my process and practice encompasses many other elements and it is important to me to be multi-faceted, adaptable and feverishly interested in almost everything. I incorporate a huge amount of visual research, as well as drawing, painting, collage, sound, music, reading, interview and creative writing in the creation of any work and every performance comes from an assemblage of images, costume, objects and exploration of bodily physicality. Curation and the facilitation of events involving a range of physical performances and installations are also an integral part of my practice and the conversations I am engaged in around art. More recently, I have been compelled to practically examine more of the physical, environmental and spatial questions I pose myself both when creating and responding to art. I have begun to place my practice in the context of fine art, namely sculpture and use that language (verbal, physical and metaphysical) to interrogate my work.

My art is always a social act – an appeal to communicate and exchange with others in an effort to expand our multiple perspectives and investigations. This is essentially because I am fascinated and infatuated with people, the complexities of being human, the difficulty of ‘simply’ existing. I perform myself because I am my nearest point of reference – my body and my experiences in it being the closest I have to an interpretation of humanity. I perform other people because I want to escape the limits of myself.

I hoard objects, images and images of objects. I am as stimulated by these as I am by bodies, visuals, film, words, colour, architectural spaces, performance texts, literature and philosophical conversation. All is to understand and form reflexions of experience – of environments and abstract occurrences.

My background is in theatre and performance art, as much as in DIY culture and punk music. The creation of performance to me has always been about crafting something bigger than myself, yet accessible to others, and having an awareness of my audience. I grew tired of the constructs of theatre, preferring the concept of liveness, dynamism and the unique moment, to rehearsal and tradition. I did, however, enjoy the materiality of theatre – the physical props, sets and buildings, which is why I am drawn to theatrical installation and sculpture that combines the figurative with architectural construction. My aim is to work towards creating epic, gross and immersive environments, which perform themselves while also containing the bodies and voices of performers but do not have to adhere to the limits of ‘theatre’, instead allowing me the freedom to exercise many forms and articulations of art.