Can you introduce yourself?
I was born in 1991 in Birmingham, UK, where I grew up before moving to Manchester to study
Fine Art at university. I graduated with a 1st Class BA in Fine Art from the Manchester School of
Art in 2014, and received the Castlefield Gallery’s Graduate Launchpad Award.
After developing my art practice and exhibiting in the UK and Spain for four years, I then
studied the MA Print course at the Royal College of Art, graduating with Distinction in 2020. I
currently live and work in London, continuing my varied practice across drawing,
printmaking, animation, sound and performance.
What medium of art do you use and why that medium?
My art practice is rooted in drawing and traditional printmaking processes, specifically
etching and relief printing. Although I do produce some other forms of work too, these two
mediums are my primary focus. For me, drawing has a unique immediacy and human
directness, and functions as both a way to produce finished works and as the starting point
for all the other work I do. I use traditional printmaking processes because of their historical
importance in the development of image-making, reproduction and of paper. Both these
mediums have been crucial (along with the paper) in the ever-evolving spread of information
across the world.
Specifically, within my work, I am interested in how landscape imagery is now transmitted,
shared and experienced in our digital world. By exploring this contemporary imagery with the
same techniques used for hundreds of years to depict landscapes by Renaissance and
Romantic artists (among others), I want to contrast the old and the new.
What are the projects you’ve worked on in UAE and worldwide?
International exhibitions – India Art Fair ‘22, Abu Dhabi Art Fair ‘22, Arch Digest Fair (India)
’22 and in the group exhibition ‘Landscape Mode’ at Galerie Isa in 2022.
UK exhibitions – many exhibitions across the UK, including group exhibitions at Saatchi
Gallery, Kristin Hjeledgerde Gallery, South London Gallery, Southwark Park Galleries, Soho
Revue, The Koppel Project, PS Mirabel, Castlefield Gallery New Art Spaces.
As well as exhibitions, I have worked as an artist educator for a variety of organisations and
galleries across the UK and Spain, including the V&A Museum, Liverpool Biennial, Coventry
Biennial, Centre for Contemporary Art Andalusia, Fundación Cajasol, Fundación Maradiaga.
What are your plans for the future, are there any projects, or collaborations you could hint on?
I have some group exhibitions coming up in autumn in London, but definitely, the most
exciting upcoming project is my first Solo Exhibition at Gallery Isa. The exhibition will open in
January 2024, in conjunction with Mumbai Gallery Weekend 2024.
What are your thoughts on the current art landscape in the UAE?
It’s an interesting and constantly changing moment we are living in. The internet, computer-generated imagery and now artificial intelligence have created huge shifts in the art
landscape over a relatively short amount of time. We navigate the evolution of technology
and authorship as artists and art viewers, but I don’t think we can begin to understand the
groundwork that is being laid now for the future art landscape. I can’t anyway – and so I also
feel unsure of being able to see what is happening in the current art landscape right now.
What message are you trying to deliver with your art?
I am interested in the dissonance between the world I see directly with my own eyes and the
imagery I see that represents the world but arrives to me through digital means. So I am
encouraging viewers to also consider this. To think about how they interact with visual
information, the images they see, they send, they copy, and they appreciate. What does it
mean to see nature on a screen instead of outside? Is it important to go outside and
experience natural landscapes if you live in a city? Does it even matter if an image you see is
created digitally rather than a drawing or a photo made by an artist inspired by the ‘real
World’?
There is a signature style you adopt in your artwork, could you touch up on that?
My style is very specific and unique, and I have developed it over the last decade. All my
drawings and prints are drawn by hand, very slowly, using systems of mark-making I have
developed to mimic different forms of reproductive technology. This includes drawing like a
computer printer, making etchings like a scanner or making screenprints like a photocopier.
What message would you like to give to our readers and young artists?
To readers – thank you for taking the time and having the interest to read a little about my
work.
To young artists – keep working and perfecting your own interests, research, and artistic
style. I can’t wait to see it!