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Statement

I began exploring colour and emotion through painting after I experienced the powerful impact of Mark Rothko’s ‘Seagram Mural’ paintings in the Tate. I wanted to make work that created a similar response – I found that blue and red work best for me but it was very interesting that I had strong negative feelings toward yellow and green.

When I took up making art full time, I started my day’s work with a 20-minute walk as a way of clearing my mind. As my awareness of changes in the landscape grew, I made photographs of moments that were significant both emotionally and visually.

I enjoy the process of photography with its combination of technicalities and aesthetics, and for a time the two activities of painting and photography continued in parallel, but I was always aware of a tension between them that I could never satisfactorily resolve. In digital video I have found an ideal medium for exploring this tension.

I started making videos in 2006 during my MA. As a result of juxtaposing photographs with paintings, then cutting them up and sticking them onto the painting in strips of different widths, I ended up painting vertical strips of colour onto the paintings – reminiscent of Barnet Newman’s “zips”. When I displayed several pieces of this work together as a series I could see that they were like film stills so that when, co-incidentally, I was introduced to digital video it felt like a medium with enormous potential for me. It was very exciting to be able to combine abstraction with photographic images and include time and sound.

I work mainly intuitively, making up rules as I go along and then breaking them. I work from video footage of ordinary, everyday moments – sometimes planned in advance and sometimes not. The addition of vertical lines into the image makes it come alive for me. I add the lines in response to events in the picture – they emphasise the passage of time through their rhythms and the changing proportions. The layering of imagery using Chroma Key I find interesting because it enables me to combine movement in several directions at once. The soundtrack of the final piece is the ambient sound slowed, stretched and layered, and sometimes mixed with other recordings.

In my recent work, I’ve been exploring the many layers of perception of everyday moments and how they change from one state to another, and the way we create patterns and rhythms in our lives.

Some artists who are influential to me are: Malcolm Le Grice for his use of repetition and rhythms of sound and image, Bill Viola for his use of slowed down film, and Ergin Çavuşoğlu's studies of transience.

Solo Exhibitions:
	Nov/Dec 2007	Norwich Arts Centre
	June 2004	North Norfolk District Council
	October 2003	Blickling Hall, Norfolk
	February 1999	Angel Gallery, North Walsham, Norfolk

Selected Group Exhibitions:
	Mar 2008	Bangkok Experimental Film Festival
	Feb/Mar 2008	Atkinson Gallery, Millfield, Somerset
	September 2007	Norwich Fringe
	September 2007	MA Show NSAD
	July 2007	Norwich Arts Centre, ”Shorts”
	April 2007	Stroud House Gallery, Stroud
	March 2007	Norwich Arts Centre “Shorts”
	February 2007	Stroud House Gallery, Stroud
	December 2006	Brick Lane Gallery, Peace Camp
	October 2006	Norwich Fringe
	September 2006	MA Show NSAD
	September 2006	Elm Hill Street Market, Norwich
	January 2006	Nova ‘Hot & Cold, Church St Gallery, Cromer & C21, Mundesley
	September 2005	Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey
	June/July 2005	Super Nova, Blickling Hall
	August/September 2004	The Lay of the Land, Salthouse Church
	June/July 2004	Super Nova, Blickling Hall
	August 2003	Colour Circle, Blickling Hall
	July-September 2000	Arcade Gallery, Norwich
	March-June 1999	Arcade Gallery, Norwich
	June 1971	Final Show Liverpool Art School
	August 1969	Liverpool Bluecoats – Multiples Exhibition
	July/August 1968	Liverpool Academy summer Exhibition

Career:
	September 2002 – present	Self-employed Artist
	September 2003 - 2006	Hon Treasurer, North Norfolk Exhibition Project
	September1984-August 2002	Head of Art & Design, Paston College, North Walsham
	September1976-August 1984	Head of Art, North Walsham Girls High School
	September1972-August 1976	Assistant Art Teacher, North Walsham Girls High School

Art Education:
	September 2005-2007	MA Fine Art, Part Time - Norwich School of Art and Design
	September 1971-June 1972	Art Teacher’s Diploma - Bristol University
	September 1968-June 1971	Dip A D Sculpture - Liverpool College of Art
	September 1967-June 1968	Pre-Dip - Liverpool College of Art

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