Welcome

Artist Biography

As a contemporary artist, my practice has a broad base both physically and conceptually and is not fixed in terms of media. However, my training and background are more closely aligned with sculpture than other forms. My fascination stems from an interest in materiality, and in the relationships between objects and spaces, thinking and making, materials and environments and between the head and the hand. In many works, I have engaged with conventions of museology, and taxonomy, often studying animal subjects to explore human behaviours relative to colonial history and identity. My work has also explored issues of otherness relative to maternal and more broadly, familial experience. I combine my research interests, through engagement with trans-disciplinary issues and practices, producing artworks in varied media. My works are both rigorously researched and painstakingly produced. They often involve the need to learn new and diverse skills and I relish the opportunity afforded by this approach.

Throughout my career I have combined my art practice with the role of educator. I have been a Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Oxford Brookes University since 2000, having previously held positions at Keele University, Duke University (NC, USA) and Kingsway College, London. I studied at Nottingham Trent University (Fine Art BA Hons, 1989-92), Chelsea College of Art (MA Fine Art (Sculpture), 1993-4) and Oxford Brookes University (PhD conferred in 2016).

My one-person exhibitions have included: Unnatural Causes (O3 Gallery, Oxford), Unruly Objects (Cornerstone Arts, Oxon), Cuculus Prospectus, (Beldam Gallery, Brunel University, London and Waterfront Gallery, UCS, Ipswich); Locations, (OVADA, Oxford); "...from the institution" (City Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke on Trent) and Taking Stock (Keele University Gallery, Staffordshire). Selected group exhibitions have included, Within and Between: Women, Bodies, Generations, (Glass Tank, Oxford), Reproducing Death, (at the 115th American Anthropological Association meeting) Minneapolis, Remote Centres, Tent Gallery, Edinburgh, The Fools Journey and Naming the Animals (both at Curious Matter [NJ] & Proteus Gowanus [Brooklyn NY], mere jelly, (Transmission Gallery, Glasgow), New Hybrids, (for the 2012 Cultural Olympiad, Oxford) and New Art New Century (Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke on Trent). My publications include ‘There’s a Monster in the Nest-box’ (chapter) in ‘Remote Performances in Nature and Architecture’, Gilchrist B., Joelson J., Warr T. ed., Ashgate, 2015. Artist’s books include How to Speak...: The Breeding Birds of the United Kingdom and Briefe and True: Lost Landscapes.