Last month three of my paintings (Glare, Bedrest & Mother’s Boots) were featured in MADE IT 2025, an exhibition curated by @shortsupplymcr x @glasshousecollectiv.e that ran at @pinkmcr_ from November 6th -November 20th.
I can’t say how much i appreciated being involved in this exhibition but I wanted to write a little bit about what it meant to me.
Post-graduation in a small Greater Manchester town whilst trying to fumble your way as an artist can feel like an absolute minefield to navigate, plagued by imposter syndrome and potholes every which way you plan. Most of all it was the sudden feeling of disconnection (which is odd because i think my course mates would remember me for being quite antisocial) but in the absence of opportunities once on your doorstep and a ready made creative hub you feel very isolated 6months in.
MADE IT has really really really helped me feel reconnected. Both with my work, seeing it in a professional context alongside such amazing artists in many different mediums (alleviated some of the blinding self-doubt that had started crowding my perception again), and most importantly it opened up more local connections with people and places that have given me hope that I can start building from where I am now!
I’d also like to say how lovely the invigilating experience was at PINK I find it to be a very welcoming environment you don’t always get with exhibition spaces, there’s something about having artists making away in studios whilst the exhibition goes on that adds a sense of life or warmth maybe? Anyway it was really nice to get to nosey at ongoing work and chat to artists and visitors alike.
I’m so happy to announce that I’ll be showing two of my paintings BedRest and Cat Council no.2 (I’ll post some pictures soon) in Wigan Arts Fest’s Open Exhibition at Wigan Pier 4! selected by the fantastic Young Curators from Wigan and Leigh College.
It opens tonight and runs till March 24th, so if you can it’d be a fantastic time to pop into Wigan and see all of the creativity beaming across the town from live music to the many varied art exhibitions!
Lurch
August 2025
Oil on wooden panel
60cm x 45cm
This piece has been through the absolute ringer and took a real while for me to click with. From moving house where it collected lots of little hairs and scratches on the surface to solvent/temperature mishaps resulting in cracking 😬. I just could not settle with this one but I’ve grown fond of all the half baked decisions and overworked areas.
Also fun fact when I worked in a warehouse I went home sick one day and people wrote “The Lurch is gone at last!!” on my clipboard to this day I’m deeply insulted by that despite not really knowing what it means
Cat Council.
Oil on wooden panel
60cm x 45cm
May 2025
This piece is from a while ago but I recently acquired a much better camera and decided it would be best to revisit the documentation and context of some older paintings.
These cats are plaster replicas made by my Dad, a practice I don’t quite understand. They litter the home: every spare corner features a cat, lion or more recently and more confusingly Michelin men (?) It began as an entrepreneurial endeavour and with honesty he has sold a few. Yet the volume in which they reappear is unfounded and excessive, as is my frustration. They present gently at first, innocent and absurd but they don’t stop. Their repetition has become insistent, eroding calm as clutter can, persistent, with sweet awkwardness and underlying hostility, inseparable from both his nature and my projections.
Little bit late to the party after some sickness… but I’m very pleased to have my painting Washing Line Dance included in the @happeninginmcr Micro-Gallery at @afflecks_manchester through Autumn till Winter!
Had a lovely time last week meeting the other artists exhibiting and having a gander at their fabulous work 🌟
If you’d like to pop in on your visit to Afflecks it’ll be there till mid-December located at the Tib Street entrance.
Seventeen
52cm x 75cm
2021
This self-portrait was completed in 2021 during the last months of the COVID-19 lockdown. Thought it was time to finally get it framed and give it a few coats of varnish!
Since I started painting again recently it’s been nice to look back at old work with a new perspective it’s funny how with time and detachment you stop recognising yourself in the painting not just the portrait but the brushwork too, I was so much more confident in my gestures then but I guess that’s what age seventeen is.
BedRest
Oil on panel
51cm x 41cm
2024
TW - Abortion and birth discussed on 4th and 5th slide.
Statement:
“BedRest, 2024 is a painting embedded in personal history, acknowledging the complexities in our relationships to motherhood and the bittersweet emotions that often come with birth. The piece references a photograph of my mother resting shortly after giving birth to her second child (b.1993) at the age of twenty-one, the same age as the artist when the painting was completed, during a conflicting period recovering from an abortion, ruminating on her mother’s choices and thoughts. The painting invites viewers to join this contemplation by peering into a private moment of peace, perhaps disturbing it, against a stormy backdrop “The duvet rises like a stormy sea to meet her lips, threatening to take her under, but she remains buoyant, floating peacefully above.” Despite the undeniably turbulent circumstances of being a young single mother, she isn’t perturbed; in her exhausted slumber, she is comforted and capable of the responsibility she faces when she awakes. The piece is part of my larger investigation into personal histories, childhood, working-class family dynamics and point and shoot photography.”
