Self-portrait

This is my self-portrait. I painted it using acrylics on a 4 ft x 5 ft canvas over the course of several weeks... I'm really pleased with the way it turned out!

Valentine

This was one of a series of handmade valentine's postcards I made using old wooden type and a letterpress printer. I moved the letters around between printing each card so each one was unique.

Abstract Expressionism

Whole piece

Close-up

Close-up

This piece was inspired by Jackson Pollock's "drip" technique. I used paint layered in a cup and poured it onto the canvas in a pattern. As the layers were poured, the colours created the effects seen above. I really enjoyed creating this piece, and I love how hard to control it was; some areas really work, others don't, but it's impossible to tell how each part will turn out. I used ten plastic cups of acrylic paint in this piece!

Barbie

This was my final piece for an art class. The task was to use something appropriated from popular culture and rework it to form a cultural critique. I chose to use Barbie as there are a lot of controversial issues tied up in her physical appearance; she represents women in an unrealistic "ideal" form.

White Sheet

This is a drawing created using a graphite pencil on drawing paper. This is actually one of my favourite pencil drawings that I have produced; I found creating it was really relaxing, as I love shading, and I think the final product turned out really well.

Skull

This piece is a drypoint etching. I enjoyed this technique, although it was very time-consuming and the plate could only be used a limited number of times as the lines became fainter each time due to the pressure of the printing press.

The Ultimate Chance

Broadside

Poem

Image

Image close-up

This piece was one of a series of broadsides printed on handmade paper. There are 18 prints in this edition, on a number of different types of paper that I made. I printed the poem on a printing press, and created the drawing of the silhouettes of birds to illustrate it. I transferred the drawing to a special type of plastic plate using a laserjet printer.

Thanks to Orlando Rodriguez for allowing me to use his poem in this piece.

Feather

This image was created using a mezzotint on a zinc plate. I love how it appears to be floating, and how the white of the feather almost glows against the really dark background.

Serenity

I used an acetate stencil to create this print. I cut out the black areas with a scalpel, rolled them with ink and laid them on the paper. I then made a rainbow split fountain and placed it over the top of the black pieces, and ran it through the press together. I love the white outline left behind by the gap between the layers of acetate, and I really like how sharply the bright colors contrast with the black.

Moonlight

To create this effect, I used a square piece of acetate, and cut the line between the ground and the sky using a scalpel. I inked up each half separately, then lined the pieces up on paper and printed them together. I used a split fountain to create the sky, and then erased the moon. I love the way the horizon appears to be glowing against the dark ground because of the color gradient in the sky.

Rainbow drip painting

Whole painting

Close-up

Close-up

This piece was inspired by Jackson Pollock's "drip" paintings. I used layered paint poured out of a cup to create the rainbow effects in each drip. I really like how the colors stay distinct and don't merge together, and the way that each drip has stripes of color within it.

Paper

Both of these works are made using collage materials on handmade paper. I added the magazine pictures to the paper after pouring the paper pulp onto the screen, and they became somewhat embedded in the paper fibers as the pulp dried.

Marilyns

I made this image using a picture of Marilyn Manson I found online. It's my own take on Andy Warhol's "Marilyns", I thought it would be interesting to update and rework that really iconic image using a new and slightly different "Marilyn"...

Marilyn

This is an aquatint etching plate of Marilyn Monroe. I actually like the inked-up plate more than the images I printed from it; the shine and the texture of the zinc adds another dimension to this image that I think gets lost on paper. 

This is a print on paper of the zinc plate etching above.

Photo / Repeat Print

I used Photoshop to recolor and copy this image. I really like repeated imagery, I use it a lot in my pieces... I love bright colors, especially rainbow colors, it's another theme that tends to come up a lot in my work.

Artist's Book

The following are pages from my artist's book project:

This piece is based on a weight watchers ad I found in a magazine. For clarification, this is not pro-ana or anything disturbing, I just wanted to use the magazine section as a critique on dieting and womens' body image. The ad was originally for some form of very low-calorie snack I think...

This piece kind of happened by accident, I was working on my book with my roommate and she mentioned something about the fingerprints I was leaving on everything because of all the ink on my hands, so I decided to work with the mess rather than try and deny it like I had been with all the other pristine pages in my book...

These pages were made using wooden stamps from an old-fashioned printing press. I stamped them by hand onto the pages. I love the texture left behind, and how each stamp leaves an imperfect print when printed by hand rather than the perfect lines and flat colors they get when they are put through the printing press.

Uplifting

This is an acetate stencil that I inked up and used as a printing block. I used a 2-color split fountain to get the color blend. I used this image to make my graffiti stickers (pictures to follow).

One Night Stand

This piece is my first attempt at a reduction lino cut. I wasn't as keen on this technique because it's so easy to mess up and your number of final pieces is limited by how many pieces you print before you cut the block down for the next color. I started out with six images for this piece, and due to alignment issues or ink transferring onto the paper from other areas of the block I only ended up with two presentable copies.

She's Watching

This piece is my first attempt at a wood cut. I liked this technique a lot more than I thought I would because making the block is quite time-consuming and easy to mess up, but I love how reusable the block is once it's created. I really like the way this image turned out, and I think the texture of the wood grain visible through the piece is really effective.

I also used this block to print onto collages:

I love the way the paper of the collage can be seen through both the gaps and the inked up areas of the prints, and I like how the texture of the background adds more dimensions to the piece.

Photos / Inspiration

I use this picture in a lot of my collage / mixed media work. I found this billboard under the flyover in Norwich, covered in all these shredded sections of posters and advertisements and took a few photos of it... It's one of my favourite pictures, it's like an unintentional collage and I love it!

This is a music store I found. I love this picture because of the title itself and the contrast between the stripes and the bricks either side of the sign...

I found this ripped up billboard in an Underground station in London. I love the  face looking out of all the torn paper, and I love how accidentally original this is; if you tried to produce something like this it would be so complicated, but this just happened between poster applications. It's sad how temporary this was, but in a way it also makes it that much more interesting if you find something like it...

Gloria

This is a project from 2007 based on contemporary icons. I used a shop mannequin I found on eBay, and drew out logos and popular culture imagery onto acetate sheets. I used an overhead projector to draw out the images onto the mannequin, and painted them with acrylic paint.

Postcard Project

This was a project based on postcards that I made in 2007. I made hundreds of them using a variety of media, some of my favourites were the collages and spraypainted cards. I arranged them in frames for display.