It’s been a busy few months, with a variety of exhibitions, opportunities and conversations taking place alongside my studio practice. 

From online exhibitions exploring material and memory to a show about fertility, an artist talk in Essex and an artist-led underground exhibition in London, it’s been a good mix of experiences.

Although quite different in their subject matter and approach, each has connected in some way with the things that interest me as an artist: memory, lived experience, the stories held in materials and objects, and the importance of creating spaces where different perspectives can be seen and heard.

Here’s a little round-up of what I’ve been involved in lately.

Signs of Use

I’m delighted to have been included in Signs of Use, an online exhibition curated by Cista Arts, taking place throughout November.

The exhibition brings together an international group of artists whose work explores the relationship between material, memory and lived experience. It’s particularly well aligned with themes that run through my own practice.

Signs of Use considers wear not as deterioration, but as evidence of contact, labour, care and transformation. From familiar objects and repeated gestures to the traces embedded in bodies, images and environments, the exhibition encourages us to reconsider the things we might otherwise overlook.

I’m particularly interested in the idea that materials can hold histories. Surfaces accumulate marks, objects become repositories for memories, and ordinary things can acquire meaning through use, repetition and time. What might initially appear to be damage or wear can actually tell us something about the lives that have passed through a particular object or place.

It’s a lovely premise for an exhibition and one that resonates strongly with my interest in the traces people leave behind.

FERTILITY: Invisible Journeys

I’m really pleased that my work Barren Pomegranates has been selected for FERTILITY: Invisible Journeys, an exhibition at Bow Arts, taking place at Oaklands Social from 16–28 November, with a private view on 19 November.

The exhibition brings together artists, creatives and people with lived experience to explore fertility, subfertility, infertility and reproductive health. It creates space for experiences that are often difficult to discuss, represent or even find the language for.

For me, this is a particularly personal subject. After years of trying to have children and unsuccessful fertility treatment, my journey ended with womb cancer and a hysterectomy.  

My eight ceramic Barren Pomegranates commemorate this experience and my wombless body.

Pink, gnarly, bruised and shiny, they resemble the image of my post-operative womb. Traditionally, pomegranates are symbols of fertility, abundance and life. Mine, however, contain nothing but the empty words of ‘encouragement’ we were given throughout our attempts to conceive.  Non-functional and awkwardly ornamental, they resist their expected purpose. Instead, they become symbols of loss, endurance and the absurdity of trying to make sense of it all.

There’s something quite important to me about taking an object traditionally associated with fertility and turning that symbolism on its head. The pomegranates look as though they should represent abundance and reproduction, but their meaning is entirely different. They occupy an uncomfortable space between beauty and bodily experience, expectation and reality.

I’m glad to be part of an exhibition that recognises fertility as something much wider than a medical or biological issue. These experiences can intersect with identity, relationships, emotions, health, society and everyday life, and no two journeys are the same.

FERTILITY: Invisible Journeys offers an opportunity to bring some of these stories into view, encouraging reflection, connection and conversation around experiences that can otherwise remain hidden.

I’m grateful to the curators, Zahra QDoodles, Imrana Tanveer Arts and Sabrina da Rodrigues, for creating a space for these conversations, and to Bow Arts and Oaklands Social for hosting the exhibition.

The One Work Gallery at The Nose Bookshop

In October, I was the featured artist at The One Work Gallery at The Nose Bookshop in Walton-on-the-Naze.

I was invited to give an artist talk at the bookshop on 7 October. It was an opportunity to talk about my painting practice, why I make the work I do, and some of the processes and materials that have become important to me.

The featured painting was Oh I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside, which was on display at the bookshop throughout October. So naturally, we also spent some time discussing the thinking behind this particular piece, how it came about and the decisions involved in making it.

I always enjoy opportunities to talk about the work outside the studio. Painting can be such a solitary process, and it’s interesting to step back from making and consider how the work communicates with other people. Talking about materials, intentions and the sometimes unexpected directions a painting takes can be just as revealing as the process itself.

A big thank you to Sue Bennett for inviting me to take part. Sue has done a fantastic job organising these artist showcases, and she’s an artist whose work I’ve admired for years. Thanks also to The Nose Bookshop in making the project happen and continuing to make such a positive contribution to the creative community in this part of Essex.

TAA: 25 Year Anniversary Show

I also recently took part in the 25th anniversary exhibition of TAA (Temporary Autonomous Art), showing my series The Process of Remembering made using acrylic and pastel on builder’s paper.

For anyone unfamiliar with TAA, it’s an underground festival of creativity that has been taking over venues across the UK since 2001. Originally initiated by Random Artists, the project makes use of unoccupied and often derelict buildings, transforming them into temporary spaces for art, performance and social exchange.

What I particularly like about the TAA ethos is its open-access approach. Exhibitions are organised and constructed by the artists themselves, with opportunities for everyone to exhibit work or perform. Painting, sculpture, digital work, installation, film, performance and music all sit alongside one another.

There is no hierarchy of celebrity or established status. The intention is to break away from the more restrictive conventions of traditional gallery spaces and create an environment that removes barriers between artist, artwork and audience.

The exhibition took place in a temporary, unfinished space, and I particularly liked the relationship between the architecture and the materials I was working with.

The walls were stripped back to their bare structural beams, with no plasterboard or finished surfaces. Against this exposed framework, the sturdy builder’s paper used in my paintings felt good.

Builder’s paper is an interesting material in its own right. It’s commonly used in building and flooring projects to create templates and protect surfaces, so it has a very practical, structural purpose. But it also holds paint surprisingly well.

I’ve been interested in exploring its possibilities for some time. It can be manipulated, folded, worked and pushed into different forms, allowing the paintings to move beyond a conventional flat surface and become almost sculptural objects. It’s not always an easy relationship, the paper certainly puts up a bit of a fight, but that negotiation is part of what makes working with it interesting.

There was something satisfying about showing these works in a space that shared some of the same qualities as the material itself: raw, exposed, temporary and unapologetically unfinished.

Forgotten Magazine

I was also really pleased to be featured in the recent Forgotten / Part 1 Special Edition of Collect Art magazine. Collect Art is an international cultural organisation based in Tbilisi, Georgia, bringing together emerging and contemporary artists through exhibitions, magazine editions, artistic books and other creative projects.

Its work places an emphasis on connecting artists across cultures and creating opportunities for exchange, collaboration and greater visibility in the arts. It was lovely to have my work included in this edition, and to be part of a publication celebrating such a diverse range of contemporary artistic voices. The cover features Elfriede by David Gnandt.

Happy and grateful

Looking back over these recent activities, what’s struck me is how differently the work can be presented and experienced, while still connecting to the same underlying interests.

It’s been a busy and varied period, and I’m grateful to everyone who has made these opportunities possible.

Earlier this year I took part in Unpeeled, the first exhibition by Painter Painter, at Downstairs at The Department Store, Brixton. All images are from the show.

Since September 2025, I’ve been taking part in the Turps Banana Correspondence Course, an internationally recognised programme supporting painters through critical dialogue, studio practice and professional development. It’s been a productive and transformative ten months, opening up new ways of thinking about my work, challenging familiar approaches and connecting me with a community of painters working across different styles, backgrounds and stages of their careers.

The course is built around the exchange of ideas rather than conventional teaching. Over ten months, participants receive four substantial written critiques: three from a dedicated mentor and one from a guest mentor. These are accompanied by online artist talks, peer-group sessions and access to a shared digital platform where artists can exchange work and ideas.

One of the things I particularly value about the programme is its approach to mentoring. There are no face-to-face meetings or live conversations with mentors. Instead, feedback arrives as an extended, considered letter. This creates space to sit with the observations, return to them and think more deeply about the work. It’s a slower, more reflective process, and one that has become an important part of my studio practice.

The experience has been so valuable that I’ve decided to undertake another round with Turps, taking me into 2027.

From correspondence to collective

One of the outcomes of the 2025/26 programme was the emergence of a collective. Through our shared experience of painting, critique and conversation, a group of us began discussing the possibility of taking our work beyond the online environment and putting on an exhibition together.

And so, Painter Painter was born.

Bringing together 46 artists from the programme, Painter Painter developed into a collective shaped by conversation as much as individual studio practice. Our first exhibition, Unpeeled, took place at Downstairs at The Department Store in Brixton, London, from 10–13 September 2026.

Rather than working towards a common theme or trying to establish a particular aesthetic, the exhibition embraced the differences between us. The work reflects a broad range of approaches to painting, visual thinking, materials and subject matter. There was no need for everything to fit together in a particular way. In fact, the diversity was the point.

What connected us was the shared experience of looking, questioning, making and responding to one another’s work. It was exciting to see something that had developed through correspondence and online conversations take physical form in a shared exhibition space.

I was involved in both the curation and installation, which brought its own challenges with 46 artists to accommodate. Despite the scale of the undertaking, the installation came together remarkably smoothly. It was a real pleasure to work alongside so many people, negotiate the practicalities and watch the exhibition take shape.

1980s Summer Holidays

For Unpeeled, I exhibited my painting 1980s Summer Holidays. (pictured below, top)

The work explores nostalgia, melancholy and hope. It imagines a past time of play and community, a landscape of childhood recreation that feels increasingly distant and, in some ways, abandoned.

I’m interested in how places hold memories, even after the people and activities that once animated them have disappeared. Traces of past lives remain embedded in their psychogeography: scuffs and marks, fragments of conversations and laughter, moments of joy and sadness layered into the landscape over time.

The painting draws on the visual language of 1980s childhood, particularly the bright pastel colours associated with clothing, leisure spaces and places of respite and recreation. These colours carry a particular emotional charge for me. They suggest a period remembered through fragments, where the ordinary places of childhood become charged with significance through the passage of time.

There is an element of looking backwards in the painting, but it is not a work of pure nostalgia. It’s also about what remains, what gets lost and how our relationship with places and people evolve and change. The past is never entirely gone; it continues to exist in the marks, memories and associations we attach to the spaces around us.

A fitting setting

Downstairs at The Department Store provided an interesting space for the exhibition.

The building is an award-winning redevelopment by architects Squire & Partners. Originally built in 1906 as an annexe to Bon Marché, the former department store is now a creative hub for artists, designers, makers and other practitioners.

Its history as a much-loved Brixton landmark, combined with its contemporary creative community, made it a fitting place for Unpeeled. The building has its own layers of history and reinvention, which felt particularly appropriate for an exhibition concerned with different perspectives, individual practices and the exchange of ideas.

It was also wonderful to bring together a group of painters who, until recently, had largely known one another through screens, written critiques and shared online spaces.

Looking ahead

For me, Unpeeled was about more than putting paintings on walls. It was an opportunity to work with my peers and take the conversations that had developed during the Turps programme into the real world. It was great to work collaboratively and to experience the possibilities of being part of a wider painting community.

There is something particularly valuable about finding people who are equally invested in the process of making, questioning and looking at paintings. The exhibition demonstrated how a shared starting point can lead to an extraordinary variety of outcomes, without the need to arrive at a single conclusion.

I’m grateful to everyone who contributed their time, energy and work to making it happen. It was a reminder that painting can be a solitary activity, but the experience of being an artist doesn’t have to be.

And with another year of Turps ahead, I’m looking forward to seeing where those conversations take me next.

Participating artists

Alice Buckee, Alys Scott-Hawkins, Andrea Stanley, Anna Webber, Annette Treacy, Aprille McShane, Asiya Clarke, Beate Köhne, Beverley Dale, Camilla Candia, Caroline Lovett, Catherine Levey, Chloë Herring, Constance Albanel de Nicolay, Elin Karlsson, Ella Johnston, Enda O’Donoghue, Fionnuala Lanigan, Frances O’Reilly, Giselle Martinez Cuadros, Hagar Basis, Hamideh Abol, Jen Metcalfe, Joanna Lynch, Joy Martindale, Kirsi Reinikka, Laura Murray, Laurence Scates, Michael Jarvis, Nicola Siebert-Patel, Patsy McArthur, Philip O’Dwyer, Rachel Mortlock, Raquel Leis, Rebecca Odessa, Roberta Bonfield, Rohini Kapil, Saba Morshed, Sharon Wyper, Sophie Epton Mock, Sue Baker Kenton, Suki Berwick, Sylvia Radford, Thaïs Lenkiewicz, Theadora Ballantyne-Way and Una D’Aragona.

At the end of August, I was part of the group show Voices From the Crypt, at The Crypt Gallery at St Pancras Church.

It was a big deal for me to be invited. The group of artists are people whose work I respect and admire, and they are all really lovely people too. So being asked to join them was a privilege.

But the show also gave me the opportunity to reconnect with a piece of my past life.

Coming Back to St Pancras

The iconic caryatids of St Pancras Church were a daily sight for me on my way to school throughout the 1980s and 90s. I used to get the 73 bus from Essex Road to Euston to Maria Fidelis Convent School.

So to return to the area, this time as an artist, felt pretty special.

There is an even deeper family connection to the area. My grandfather worked for British Rail, based in Euston and St Pancras in the 1970s. When my father first arrived in England from Ireland in the 1960s, Euston Station was his first encounter with the country.

The area is in my DNA.

So I wanted the works in the show to be personal to me, and I wanted at least one piece to reference the area specifically.

 Post Rave Come Down

I was allocated a beautiful black nook in the Crypt. Because I had plenty of notice, I was able to make pieces with the space in mind, rather than trying to fit existing work into it.

The main piece, Post Rave Come Down, is acrylic, crayon and silver leaf on canvas and tarpaulin. It was made in dedication to the area.

I was thinking about the site of Bagley’s, at the back of King’s Cross station.

In the mid-to-late 80s, when I first went to secondary school, the area was pretty unloved and was famed for criminality and sex work. In the early 90s, the old bottle-maker warehouse, Bagley’s, became a club, just in time for my coming of age, when I was into “that kind of thing”.

Now it is Coal Drops Yard: a very corporate site of businesses, shopping and lunches, with a name trading on its old history. I’ve even gone to a few working lunches there. It is a site that has seen so much, with layers and layers of stories.

The colours and shiny silver in Post Rave Come Down evoke my memories of a site that was unloved, then utilised for collective fun and personal discovery.

The painted, tattered, semi-transparent tarpaulin references the site’s continual state of transition; a landscape in a constant state of dereliction, occupation, rebellion, building and rebuilding.

Childhood Memories

My other pieces were an exploration of my childhood.

Sunbathing and Paddling; Ski Jackets, Jelly Shoes and Swings and Sunny Days Filled With Hope remember that sliver of concrete and the old playgrounds, buffered by flats, garages and the people who inhabited them.

Those places and people are all gone now, but they remain somewhere in my memory. They are imagined landscapes with hidden messages to people who I loved that aren’t here anymore.

Voices From the Crypt

The Crypt Gallery is a historic 19th-century burial vault, so it would have been easy for the space itself to dominate the work.

But it didn’t.

Instead, the eclectic show brought together drawing, sculpture, painting, film, assemblage, stitching, collage and installation. The works responded to the Crypt itself, its shadows, its architecture and its charged stillness.

I really loved everyone’s work and was so pleased to have the opportunity to work alongside them.

The Artists

Catriona Faulkner; Doug Selway; Eves Eveson; Jennie Sharman-Cox; Jill Desborough;  Karen Christensen; Marsha Roddy;  Rodger Worth; Stephen Cooper; Tilly Worth and Will Adams. [works below in artist order]