I am a visual artist based in Edinburgh, Scotland. I make paintings and collage using video to document and find new ideas.
Painting restructures what I see—and remember. I often work outdoors which allows me to toggle between representation and abstraction while examining what I am seeing. I like to work in abandoned places where layers of human habitation merge with nature – physical evidence of the past disintegrates; yet the story of the place exerts a force.
Often, I rework these pieces in the studio. Here the material of personal memory and cultural references surface. I try to challenge nostalgic narratives of the past while acknowledging the value in the aesthetic choices of memory. My paintings are an imprint of this dynamic.
I use found objects and images as prompts to remember stories, associations, and visual qualities that become paintings. The implied narratives of figuration vie with abstraction as I look for new crossovers of subject and materials. Sometimes this develops into larger installations. Whether working in the studio or in the landscape I try to find what is meant to surface.
I grew up an identical twin in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, and lived in Vermont, Pennsylvania, California and New York City before coming to Scotland in 1990. I left urban life in Brooklyn for a cottage in Glenisla, Pethshire, then a sheep farm in Angus before settling in Fountainbridge in Edinburgh in 1996.
For many people who migrate, ‘identity’, ‘place’, ‘home’ are shifting, transitory. My work draws on my experience of displacement to look at the beauty and danger of nostalgia and the unreliability of memory.
I am a member of:
Scottish Artist’s Union
Studio 1.1, London
Scottish Society of Artists
Visual Arts Scotland
Scottish Contemporary Art Network,
