My first blog!

I started out in 2002 doing a foundation course at Norwich University College of the Arts and then started studying at Central St Martins on the Textile Design degree course. However, I found that this wasn’t the creative area for me and changed to University of West of England in Bristol to do BA (Hons) Drawing & Applied Arts, graduating in 2008 with a 2:1.

In June 2011, I began working as a freelance artist and started renting a studio at Muspole Workshops in Norwich – http://www.muspoleworkshops.co.uk. Muspole has a fantastic community of artists and great atmosphere and every Christmas, we organise an Open Studios for the public to see more of what we do. I have been exhibiting in Norwich since then, and in March 2012, I was shortlisted for the East Anglian Young Artist Development Prize awarded by the Anteros Arts Foundation – http://www.anteros.co.uk/

Drawing for me is like a meditation. I follow a line and have a sense of what I want to create. I am completely absorbed as I move the pencil across the paper. Sometimes I see where a line will go; at others, it will lead me.

Acceptance, wood-burning pen on oak, 32 x 17 cm

I have attended life drawing classes since the age of 13. My work now is figurative; the human form continues to entice and inspire me. I work on varying scales, using pencil, watercolour ink or a wood-burning pen – otherwise known as ‘pyrography’. Drawing with a wood-burning pen on wood or paper gives the impression of fragility and also of strength and creates varying, woody hues. Every burn mark is permanent and forces me to be precise.

My interest in figurative work always brings me back to the rigour of life drawing. My work is strong, powerful, feminine and rich visually. My images give traditional figure-drawing an elegant, contemporary slant.

My drawings are influenced by the literary work ‘The Five Stages of Grief’, by Dr Elizabeth Kübler-Ross and also, the photographic technique of Eadweard Muybridge. I represent the idea of a physical and emotional journey by breaking down movement, so that the figures move across and around the page. I look at the idea of our emotional and physical journeys we make through life. Each experience is as important as the next: they cannot be separated. The past informs the present.

Emergence, wood-burning pen on paper, 102 x 78 cm