“I love the beginning of a new series of work when I get to explore a new material or process.”
Tell us about your process
I could talk for hours about this. In my practice, process is everything. Instead of asking “What will I make?” I ask “How will I make?”.
I like to begin with a specific material or method, and experiment extensively with no expectations. My aim is to uncover a characteristic of the material or process to use as the aesthetic foundation for a series, and then I build the works from there.
The important idea is this bottom-up approach to making. I don’t decide how a finished piece should look and work backwards to figure out how to achieve it. I facilitate the process from the other direction.
Where do you draw inspiration from?
I’m really drawn to the patterns and instances of repetition found in nature. I’m fascinated by the idea that there is an underlying logic and computational explanation behind them all. I also love learning about how different materials are made and how everyday objects are assembled.
Music or no music in the studio? If so, what do you listen to?
Absolutely yes to music in the studio. I love super long mixtapes to stay focused. I also listen to a lot of podcasts and audiobooks while I work.
You spent time studying at Leeds College of Art, how did that experience influence your practice?
Studying at LCA was an incredible experience for me. The program allowed me to dive into so many different mediums and processes. The freedom to work across so many disciplines helped me see what remained consistent no matter what material I worked with, and this really unlocked the philosophy of my practice.
It was also intense! The expectations are high and the deadlines are tight. My experience there taught me what I can accomplish in short bursts of hard work, which I try to keep in mind now as I structure my own studio time.
What’s the relationship between your sculptural and 2D artworks?
I actually don’t really consider them different from each other aside from their formal properties. The approach for creating them is the same. But they do inform each other, there is a continuous dialogue between works. Ideas move from surface into space and vice versa.
Is there an element or stage of your practice that you enjoy the most? What is it and why?
I love the beginning of a new series of work when I get to explore a new material or process. What happens when I do x? What about y? What if I bring in z parameter? It’s so exciting and energizing. I can sense the all the potential of the process. There is no other feeling like it, it's powerful and manic.
Later when I have determined how I want to work, the process becomes very methodical, and I really enjoy this part as well. Working systematically and deliberately can be like meditating.
What led you to create the Migration series?
When I started working on these drawings I was writing my dissertation, so they were heavily influenced by my research. I was reading about effective complexity - essentially, the sweet spot between order and chaos, and emergence - bottom up processes.
To better understand these concepts I was exploring them visually. I started by working with small, simple units (lines of x length) and incrementally building them up until the compositions become complex and dynamic microcosms.
Do the visual motifs represent something specific?
I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to abstraction. To me, finished pieces are simply a literal depiction of the process.
“When I started working on these drawings...I was reading about effective complexity - essentially, the sweet spot between order and chaos, and emergence...”
This is an interesting question. Sometimes it’s obvious, a process is designed to have an ending point. Other times, it can be an intuitive exercise to find that place for the work. In those cases I guess I’m never sure.
You’ve worked on a lot of large scale murals in recent years, how would you say that type of work influences your practice?
Painting murals has definitely given me a fearlessness about scale! It’s also changed my perspective on production labour- large paintings don’t seem so large when you’ve just painted a building.
Public art also comes with a lot of really interesting political considerations. Making site-specific work has made me think a lot about the contexts in which art can exist and who can and should be able to access art.
Do you collect art?
Of course!