Born in England, in a slum close to Nottingham railway station, I was surrounded by migrants bringing the scent of spices, steel bands playing on the street corner and reggae blasting out of bedroom windows… I taught myself to read at age four and pretty much gave it up by the age of six. In my second year at primary school I was awarded a prize for imaginative story writing, a waist apron with pocket chosen by Mr Smith’s wife. The following year I won an art competition for painting a Great Crested Grebe on the River Trent. Quiet and shy, my head was full of ideas, disjunctures and self-doubt. I couldn’t quite make sense of the world.
Later in life childhood inclinations for imaginative language and creative out workings began to resurface urgently and I progressed as a mature student through art education, finally gaining a doctorate in collaboration and intersubjectivity. Positioning my voice in the world as an independent artist/scholar I now work in various artistic and educational contexts in Europe and beyond.
I love talking, and the tangents and meanderings conversations create. I am drawn towards making ‘things’ with other people – collaborators, instigators and agitators. Sometimes I need my own space in order to make solo works, to journey and to reflect. Without hierarchy my artistic practice bleeds across performance and still works, text and lens, sculpture and writing.
