Raw, layered paintings where joyful colour, play and instinct meet.

Some paintings reveal everything at once. Others take a little longer. These are the ones I'm drawn to. The longer we spend with them, the more they seem to give back. A colour that hadn't stood out before. A shape that suddenly feels familiar. One day it might suggest a landscape, another a map, a garden, a microscopic world or something entirely imagined. No two people see exactly the same thing, and a painting can continue to reveal itself over time.

Each painting begins without a fixed destination. I work intuitively, building layers and responding to colour and mark-making as the work develops. I leave room for play, experimentation and the unexpected, because that's often where the work comes alive. The paintings I love most are the ones that take on a character of their own, becoming something I couldn't have planned.

Although my paintings don't depict specific places, they're shaped by years of noticing the world around us. The veins in a petal. The tiny colourful details on a beetle shell. Different species of lichen slowly creeping across old branches. The patterns and rhythmic textures in tree bark. Tangled roots. Shifting cloud formations. None of them become literal subjects, but they all find their way into the work.

The titles grow alongside the paintings, from the same quiet habit of noticing. They usually emerge from conversations, snippets of language, song lyrics or thoughts that happen to linger while a painting is taking shape. They become another layer of the painting - sometimes humorous, sometimes tender, sometimes even quietly awkward - nudging the imagination without trying to define it.

Painting has always been there, quietly running alongside everything else. After studying Painting at Loughborough University and completing a Master's in Art Museum and Gallery Studies at the University of Leicester, I worked on curatorial research projects at Yorkshire Sculpture Park and HUB (the National Centre for Craft & Design). I then became an art consultant for a commercial gallery before opening and running my own contemporary craft gallery. In the years that followed, alongside family life, I coordinated Creative Leicestershire's mentoring programme for creative entrepreneurs and spent seven years as a handpoke tattoo artist before becoming a full-time painter.

Today I paint from my studio in the Bedfordshire countryside, usually with music playing and several paintings in progress simultaneously. The aim is for the paintings to continue to unfold long after they leave the studio - bringing joy, curiosity and a sense of discovery to the people who spend time with them.

Selected Exhibitions

• 2026 – The Secret Postcard Show, The Old Lock Up Gallery, Cromford, Derbyshire

• 2019 – Summer Open Exhibition, SOCK Gallery, Loughborough

• 2010–2014 – Ongoing exhibition of work, Itch Gallery, Oakham

• 2007 – Collective Group Exhibition, View from the Top Gallery, Nottingham

• 2006 – Fine Art Degree Show, Loughborough University

• 2003 – Art & Design Foundation Diploma Show, Loughborough University