I was brought up on my family’s farm outside Edinburgh where I now have my studio and home.
After completing a Psychology degree at St Andrews University in 1989 I studied Ceramics at Camberwell College in London, graduating in 1993. Subsequently I exhibited my ceramic sculptures in galleries across Britain. A desire to explore drawing and painting led me to Leith School of Art in 2008.
My work takes its starting point from observational drawing of quite prosaic subjects such as tools or chairs. They frequently refer to the world of work or making that is primarily physical in nature. Probably an upbringing on a farm followed by training as a ceramicist and marrying a furniture maker (Roland Fraser) has informed these choices of subject matter.
The experience of intense observation followed by open-ended exploration of the subject using a variety of media allows new, salient images to arise.
These distilled images are an endeavour to transform the work from mere observation to an expression of an emotionally charged world within the painting.
‘There is no mystery in art. Do the things that you can see, they will show you what you cannot see’. Isak Dinesen