TUBE FEET
I took these photos just as we were emerging from Lockdown 3 in May and the London tubes were starting to fill up again. I found that now we all want to avoid each other for fear of catching Covid, everyone looks down at their feet even more than before. I have also always felt that feet (the way we position them and the shoes we wear on them) say a lot about a person.
I travelled the Underground from Kennington to Golders Green, Mile End to Notting Hill Gate, moving from carriage to carriage at every stop and surreptitiously taking photos of the feet of the person opposite me, from the same perspective each time. I then decided to paint some of my favourite Tube Feet, rendering the legs and shoes in thick, solid oils, while diluting the background to keep it more suggestive and abstract.
UNDERWATER SERIES
This series was inspired by my love for swimming and the joyful, weightless freedom felt when underwater. Following 18 months of successive lockdowns and rules put in place to curb the effects of the pandemic, the liberating release of being underwater is a feeling many of us crave.
Through this project I also wanted to challenge myself to capture the distortions of light, colour and form when bodies are underwater. I have largely used found images, cropped to best highlight these distortions, and closely observed the way ripples, bubbles and rays of light change the colour and texture of flesh beneath the surface. To portray the sense of freedom and joy I have used bold, impasto, swirling brush marks on top of a brightly coloured ground.
Two pieces from this series were chosen as part of the Young Art Collector SELECTS show in June 2021 and sold in the pre-release before the show officially began. The originals below have all sold but Giclée prints are available through the All Prints page and I am continuing to develop the series, so keep an eye out on my Instagram for new originals.
COLLECTIVE EFFERVESCENCE
'Collective Effervescence' is a large 100 x 130cm painting (acrylic and spray paint on unprimed canvas), that celebrates the fizzy, giddy sensation that you get when you're in a big group of people, all there for the same joyful purpose - a feeling we've all been pretty deprived of over the past 18 months!
Inspired by a photograph I took at a Four Tet gig in 2018, the piece aims to capture the contagious, euphoric sense of group connection you feel when you're in the throng of a live crowd, bopping along to the same beats.
The painting was created by cutting out each of the lights into a stencil made from acetate sheets - each light was cut by hand using a Stanley knife. I then used spray paint to lightly paint through the stencil onto a hand-made, custom canvas that I didn’t prime but coated with black acrylic using a roller (so that the rough texture of the canvas is still visible). I then painted each ball of light individually to add colour and depth.
Overall the process took almost 6 weeks from start to finish - the acetate stencil was definitely the fiddliest part! Check out some of the process videos on my Instagram if you’re interested in seeing more.
The original piece is available to purchase - contact me for pricing - or you can order a print through the All Prints page.
RECLAIMED WOOD
Reclaimed Wood is a refurbished, original Georgian window (found discarded on the street), fitted with new glass panes that have been etched using a Dremel on the front, and sandblasted to create the trunk on the back. The piece was inspired by the many Lockdown walks we all took in 2020, when the magnificent trees in London parks seemed to garner more wizened importance than ever.
