My work is inspired by old trees, their forms, their history, and the ways that humans, animals and natural processes have shaped them. To me, trees are sculpted non-human experience, shaped in dialogue with their environment: old trees are time made wood.

I work outdoors and the studio, foraging for images amongst the trees, capturing their essence and energy then transmitting this life force through my artwork. My drawings weave together elements of the tree and the figure and are always about movement, whether that movement takes three seconds or three centuries. Trees move very slowly in comparison to us humans, and I aim to show what we share through my drawings.’ 

My charcoals play with ambiguity, blurring the boundaries between tree, figure and water, allowing the viewer to make their own meanings. I use random marks and textures when beginning a work to provoke pareidolia, enabling me to suggest on paper the complexity I see in life. Charcoal allows me to express both subtlety and dramatic contrast as I move between light and dark towards the powerful chiaroscuro I strive for. There’s also something poetic about depicting living wood with its carbonised self.

By drawing I seek to communicate the experience of seeing via the transference of complex three-dimensional perception into two-dimensional mark making. The process feels akin to sculpture; carving out contour lines, adding and erasing deep layers of charcoal, scraping and wiping oil paint to reveal light and form. 

Drawing is my dialogue with the observed world and through dialogue with trees, my work asks not just what they look like, but also what looking at trees can tell us about ourselves.