ARTIST CONTEXTUAL STATEMENT
Fundamentally, my work is a form of escapism and entertainment that holds up a mirror to reflect celebrity culture, mass / social media, and ideas of performed personality- making us question how we consume said media and how we process entertainment. My aesthetics draw visual parallels to transgressive figures and movements such as Divine, John Waters and the Club Kids of the 80s including Michael Alig, James St. James and Amanda Lepore- all who became important figures in my life after discovering myself fully and letting my queerness flourish, realising their importance for their outspoken and outlandish nature.
My practice is born out of my own personal experience, having a difficult childhood and suppressing my own queerness and using reality TV as an escape route, so it could be said my work also incites feelings of nostalgia as many visual and contextual references are from the mid-2000s pop culture landscape when the idea of ‘famous for being famous’ was undoubtedly at its height.
I always say that I am the centre of my work, presenting myself as a malleable material and being able to shift and change into different characters expressed through performance, videos / photos, extending myself as an artist and creating many different personas. Other materials include queer and camp aesthetics such as lipstick, wigs and inflatable breasts but also D.I.Y aesthetics such as shoddy editing and cheap materials to make the work feel more relatable and chaotic, which is the driving force behind the work itself. Conceptually, my work is about gender, gender as performance, sexuality, the relationship between performer and audience but also has more psychological and social readings such as what it means to be under surveillance, how the public treat celebrities, the Hawthorne effect and the impacts of the mass consumerist celebrity culture we’re living in.
Class has become a recent inspiration within my work as I realised being a working-class artist, I should use my voice and dictate my experiences, as the art world can be extremely alienating and elitist for those from poorer backgrounds. It also added an even more personal level to my work- making it more authentic and adding more conceptually grounded context to it.
On the surface my work should provide entertainment, fun escapism, and camp humour but also the grotesque and presentation of real-life issues and structures- through the colourful lens that I create. For more critical thinkers it can provide discussions on gender, mass media, celebrity and popular culture and what it means to live in a world of spectacles such as reality tv and social media.
Written Work:
Education:
- Foundation Diploma in Art & Design - Camberwell College of Arts, UAL.
- BA (Hons) Fine Art Sculpture, Camberwell College of Arts, UAL.
Shows:
2020
-Class Of:, Copeland Gallery, Peckham, London
2019
- CREEM Collective, Camberwell College of Arts, Camberwell, London
- Merge, CPG London, Southwark, London
2018
- Liminal Environments, The Silver Building, Silvertown, London
- Over Capacity, CPG London, Southwark, London
2017
-In The Making, AMP Studios, New Cross, London
- mylifeisover101, Peckham Rye, London
- First Year Final Show, Camberwell College of Arts, Camberwell, London
2016
- How To Eat A Grapefruit, The Crypt, Camberwell, London
- CCW Foundation Diploma Final Show, Camberwell College of Arts (Wilson Road), Camberwell, London.1