My art seeks to translate personal vulnerability into a universal dialogue, celebrating the co-existence of intellect, playful joy and the parts of the human spirit that survive intact.
Artist Bio
As an eclectic, cross-disciplinary British artist/illustrator, my practice sits at the intersection of lived experience and a vast, insatiable curiosity that moves fluidly across the arts, sciences, and humanities.
Following early promise in film, my trajectory was interrupted by a hiatus spent navigating severe chronic illness and AuDHD, complexities that remained undiagnosed and misdiagnosed for most of my life.
With the clarity of correct diagnoses, my practice is re-emerging alongside my chronic illnesses to explore what it means to be human, to be different, and to feel misunderstood.
Today, I create a combination of digital works focused on scientific concepts, alongside hand painted and drawn illustrations using watercolour, ink washes, pen and ink, and coloured pencil, which focus on my special interests in history and the natural world.
Ultimately, my art is a celebration of the parts of the human spirit that survive intact.
Artist Statement
My practice explores the duality of intellect, joy and emotional vulnerability through painting, digital, and analogue drawing. I take a polymathic approach, moving between critical analysis and creative expression to celebrate a Renaissance way of thinking in which art and science are inseparable. Anchored both in lived experience and academic research, my work is driven by a boundless curiosity ranging from medical ethics, global politics, and history to literature, art, and the natural world.
My approach currently manifests through two distinct but interconnected strands:
Digital Works: Often centred around scientific concepts.
Hand Painted Illustrations: Utilising watercolour, ink washes, pen and ink, and coloured pencil. Grounded in close observation of my special interests in history and the natural world, these works are joyful and apparently naive, offering a space for neurodivergent freedom. This style is a vital expression of the part of my soul that has survived difficulties such as trauma and misdiagnosis. It is my contention that this joyful, resilient spirit can, and does, coexist alongside my intellectual side. This concept is something that the world at large struggles to comprehend due to extremely spikey nuerodivergent profiles (when there is a a highly uneven pattern of cognitive and functional abilities) being poorly understood.
Because of my experiences, everything about my art is, at its core, a testament to my soul having survived. I aim for my work to look beyond my own life, exploring the broader human condition under pressure. In future artworks I hope to acknowledge the toll of adversity while examining the attributes that allow people to survive, translating personal struggle into a visual reflection on the complex reality of survival in a very difficult world.
Looking to the future, a central focus of my enquiry will be the “Diagnostic Odyssey”, examining the prolonged and delegitimising journey of patients navigating poorly understood or complex conditions within systems that struggle to recognise them. Alongside this exploration, I will be further investigating the duality of intellect versus naive emotional joy and vulnerability, and focusing on drawing people in my illustrative style, placing them within contemporary contexts.
I will always continue to celebrate the unique, playful joys that can be found in neurodivergent experiences.