I am a visual artist based in East Anglia, UK and have made installations and site-specific work in rural and urban locations for over twenty years. I originally trained in drawing and painting at Edinburgh College of Art. Now my practice encompasses installation, lens-based media, sound and performance. Since the completion of a PhD in 2002 at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, I have developed modes of critical engagement in site-specific installation and writing through practice-based and field research. I am particularly interested in how artists negotiate with, and involve, people and place. I examine practical, social and political issues of site by appropriating everyday materials and lo-tech approaches to make work that uplifts and challenges the viewer’s usual perception of that object, place or environment.
I have been commissioned to make site-specific work for a variety of rural and urban sites including: changing the skyline of London with a flock of one hundred artificial birds on a city roof; trying to make a straight rainbow on the Pentland Hills in Scotland; creating a taste of summer in mid-winter on the streets of Helsinki, Finland with UV light and ice cream; installing a temporary camera obscura in Westonbirt Arboretum, Gloucestershire and Shingle Street Beach, Suffolk; getting hundreds of people to dance under magenta spotlights in forgotten corners of north London; and using one of the earliest photographic processes to record over 500 Cambridge residents’ curious objects.
I am currently Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at University of Suffolk, UK.