A FLAG FOR NO ONE AND EVERYONE
Across Britain, flags have become louder. Raised on buildings, roundabouts and across our screens. The act of flying a flag has never felt more complex, shaping how we see ourselves and each other. Symbols once meant to unite are now used to divide. I grew up in a South Yorkshire mining town, not far from Manvers where riots broke out in 2024, but the sense of how a flag can hold pride and fear in the same breath came long before.
Imagined Territories is a self-initiated public artwork unfolding across more than 20 sites and civic locations in Sheffield and Barnsley — from large-scale 48-sheet billboards to citywide poster placements: a flag for everyone, and for no one.
The project fuses my backgrounds in art, design and advertising, following the rhythm of a two-week campaign but, instead of selling, it asks questions. Reimagining a flag as a symbol of connection rather than division, the work borrows the proportions and authority of a national flag while refusing to dictate allegiance.
Funded by @artcry20 , a commissioning fund supporting artists to make urgent, responsive work, Imagined Territories asks what pride, identity and belonging mean here and now. Installed beside busy roundabouts and civic spaces often used for public flag-raising, the piece uses the visual language of advertising to prompt reflection on who and what we stand for.
Before the studio years, I worked in agencies including M&C Saatchi, Cake and Havas — when guerrilla marketing meant moving fast, breaking things and finding new ways to make people look up. Imagined Territories carries that same charge but redirects it. The energy of a viral campaign turned toward reflection, complexity and human connection.
Where traditional campaigns sell, this one simply asks: What does it mean to belong? Can I be proud of where I’m from without aligning with everything done in its name? Where do people with layered identities stand when public life demands simplicity? What does Britishness mean, and who gets to define it?
Continued in the comments…
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A M P L I F I E D C O L O U R !
So pleased to share my latest work commissioned by @sheffmuseums
Located at the iconic Millennium Gallery here in Sheffield, Loose Ends 319 celebrates pure colour and draws inspiration from the city’s abstract art collection while looking ahead to the forthcoming gallery programming centred around the theme of colour.
The pieces aren’t printed colour but collage-cut individual components that allow for greater colour translucency and brightness. These cut pieces are then pieced back together on glass - echoing the original process of making these works.
Exploring the dynamic possibilities of colour, form, and their interplay with light, this artwork combines expressionism through abstraction with the idea of colour as a living, evolving element. By utilising vivid, bright solid colours alongside translucent tones, the artwork is designed to cast playful light and shadow through the ever-changing seasons as the sun interacts with the piece. This approach creates a two-way view, inviting viewers to engage from different perspectives and experience how colour behaves dynamically—changing as it interacts with light, shadow, and the surrounding environment.
The design is influenced by Bridget Riley’s and Lubna Chowdhary’s interaction with colour and form, along with John Hoyland’s emotional abstract paintings, which can all be seen at Graves Gallery, above the Central Library.
It feels incredibly special to have a piece of work in such a prominent space in Sheffield - the city that became home and where I completed my Fine Art degree @sheffhallamuni
It’s also a privilege to follow in the footsteps of fellow Sheffield artists and heroes, who inspired me to follow my degree, especially @kidacne who pioneered the idea of having artwork to the Millennium Gallery windows back in 2011.
A huge thank you to the team at @sheffmuseums for their support, and to @sxsheffield for their expert installation and for piecing this giant collage jigsaw together, and to @owenrichards for capturing this with his wonderful photography. Powered by @marmadukescafe coffee.
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Give that man a brush 🙏🏼 @andywelland is responsible for this years summer injection of colour on the iconic Quayside.
Returning again with @newcastlene1 & @newcastlecouncil to brighten up your walk, run, slash market visit.
Made possible thanks to @agency_accent & @thelondonmuralcompany .
Curated by @unit44gallery
Captured by @jaydawson__ 🚁
A pleasure to bring this to life, now it belongs to you.
#44installs #Curatedby44
🌈✨✨ NEWS!
This didn’t make the final furlong, but I’m really happy to share that I made the esteemed long-list for the @artangel_ldn Open 2025!
With over 1,000 submissions from 80 countries, it feels pretty special that the idea made it this far.
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Ascending Together: a large-scale participatory artwork and performance centred around a giant hot air balloon.
The balloon acts as both a functional aircraft and a canvas for collective expression: a shared surface shaped by many voices, rising into the sky as a symbol of connection, unity, and the human experience.
About Artangel:
Artangel produces ambitious, large-scale contemporary projects, often placing extraordinary artworks in unexpected contexts, so it means a lot to have been in the mix.
Big thanks to the panel for the consideration, and congrats to everyone who made the shortlist and final commission:
Idea is still on the cards for ambitious commissioners!
I’m sure I posted this before but it has been on my mind again.
Back in art school I made a series of drawing “robots”.
They were made from old coffee cups where I attached three felt tip pens for legs and then a really simple motor that was cellotaped to the upturned base. The vibration from the motor allowed them to move and effectively draw across a paper floor.
The time lapse video was done on an old Sony Cybershot camera that was the height of tech and edited on an old Final Cut rig in the editing room at uni. With all of them running, they made quite the symphony of jittering and drawing until the battery ran flat or they scooted off the paper into a corridor.
Im still drawn to the oscillation of human and machine, (particularly when bending the machine rules to human whims), the idea of design systems, the ghost in the machine, and also the play as a philosophy for making work and the idea of the artist being the facilitator.
It makes me wonder how far this idea could be pushed twenty years on, now in 2026 and what it would look like. ✏️ ✨✨
Kaleidoscopic floor tiles with @mosaic.factory
The best part is you can customise and choose your own colours!
(Pink all the way).
See the collection via the Mosaic Factory website
20% OFF
SPRING SALE & STUDIO MUSINGS
Spring’s finally here. A bit more light, a bit more energy.
Busy and dusty times here!
We’ve got building work underway at home at the moment, which is also where the studio lives. Most of the studio is currently save and packed away in a storage unit whilst I work remote from a lovely green desk at a friendly, local design studio.
I’ve been spending a lot of time planning, pitching, thinking and developing a number of larger-scale projects and it has made me reflect on a time back in the studio during lock-down. I had the idea of not only building bodies of work, but really, the work is about building worlds.
Increasingly, my work is moving towards spaces where this happens collectively. In some cases, where projects are rooted in co-creation.
The work is becoming deeper with what happens around it. The interactions, the interpretations, the way it shifts depending on who’s experiencing it, but also creating the space for a shared moment in time - something we experience together whilst allowing the viewer to be not just an observer, but also an active participant. All of this thinking comes back to some core thinking from my art school days funnily enough and how art, design, play and philosophy collide.
Play matters more to me than ever. Not play as whimsy, but play as a philosophical stance. A refusal to let things calcify into fixed meaning. The artist has a specific role in this: part maker, part trickster. Someone who operates inside structures and institutions and communities, but who reserves the right to be mischievous within them. To make the serious feel joyful and the joyful feel serious.
All of this development and work has meant more time on the computer and less painting, so my time and energy are being pulled in a few directions. It feels an exciting time but also one very much in flux.
So, in the spirit of keeping the wheels on the metaphysical art bus moving, and to give something back if you’ve supported the work before, I’m opening up a short sale for the coming days.
Use code TWENTYOFF at checkout.
A reminder that (most) works include free global shipping.
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Loose Ends 237
Part of my Kaleidoscope painting collection.
Each piece is created through the prism of play - literally pushing my collage work through a series of mirrors to create a collection of unique paintings that channel fun and energy.
Original painting, acrylic on paper
330gsm 100% rag (cotton) stock
Deckle-edge
760 x 760mm (paper size)
Signed, titled and dated verso
£400
Available via my shop.
Loose Ends 358
One of my new original paintings ✨
Part of a series of 10 new works, these pieces are at the core of my practice.
Available now with free global shipping 🚚✨✨
Original painting, acrylic on paper
300gsm 100% cotton rag
Hand-torn decal edge
570 × 760 mm
Signed, titled and dated verso
£400
LAST ONE 🌈✨✨
Loose Ends 122: the final plasticine relief.
Turning up the weird with a mountain of neon-bright Plasticine, manipulated and squished into an insanely high-spec, custom-built case. Luscious and frivolous; the materials of silliness and childhood amped up to epic proportions, made in the language of play.
Held inside a slick, engineered casing, precision-built, weighty, almost industrial… the piece creates a tension between chaos and control. Soft, impulsive gestures locked into something sharp, resolved, and permanent.
This work sits somewhere between painting and object. Between instinct and structure. Every push, press and collision held in place.
123 × 123 × 8 cm
Plasticine on board / mixed-media
Spray-finished aluminium tray (white)
Tulip wood sub-frame
5-sided acrylic box frame
Approx. 60kg, hang-ready
£2,200
Free UK mainland delivery included
Collection from Sheffield also available if you have a van!
