Artist statement

My work has always represented a longing for something I deeply crave but cannot have – to feel safe, to feel understood, to feel desired, to feel entirely loved. Obsessed with the male form as my subject, I have come to use drawing and printmaking as a way to bare my psychological nakedness by deconstructing and reconstructing nude others.

I examine the realities of, and tensions between my personal perceptions of male bodies – of the self and other – as sites of both desire and disgust. In doing so, I ask the viewer to consider questions of not only identity and sexuality, but more fundamentally to sit with the forms of dissonance or resonance between internal and external realities which they feel in relation to the artworks’ portrayals.

By nature, many of my artworks are psychosocial constructions. I believe that unapologetically depicting queer bodies and intimacy – in any manner – elevates the visibility of matters which were historically considered improper, immoral or even illicit, and still are classed as such in some communities even today. The implicitly erotic has the potential through visibility and social commentary to hold power across society; it should not be solely restricted to the bedroom.

Attracted to the dry media of charcoal and soft pastels for the tensions they bridge – between delicacy and density, permanence and smudging – I smear these pigments across paper to enable the male physicality which exists in my mind’s eye to be made real on the surfaces I touch. Conversely, I use printmaking to embed permanent marks onto paper, in ways which mirror the intimate experiences whereby other people’s actions are imprinted within each of us. Simultaneously, I take a socio-political stance of favouring the creation of monoprints as a subversive challenge against the heteronormative social value placed on reproducibility.

Living in London and south-east England, I am a fine art graduate with distinction of the Royal College of Art. I have exhibited across London and the UK, and my artworks are held in private collections spanning the UK, Europe and North America.