Fine Art nominee

This work is influenced by the history of flower painting, the domestic space, and the social construction of femininity. Flower painting began as a sphere of high accomplishment, usually painted by male artists for high regard and high prices. This soon changed when the genre became a predominantly female practice; it then became regarded as a petty, genteel female accomplishment. The work embraces this space and reveals it to be complicated, constrictive, obsessive and maybe slightly menacing. Domesticity is a realm of experience set apart from that which is public, yet intimately connected to it, and one that has come to be defined as female.

I have been looking at the feminine, what is stereotyped as feminine, and why the domestic space is home to this, a safe place for women to work, but which also constricts and constrains, and imprisons them. I carefully construct still life scenes in my home: flowers and foliage are draped, sewn, tied, bound and suspended into position before the camera. This controlled method is integral to the resultant pictures, I dominate the domestic environment, using a large format plate camera to capture the fabricated scenes.

I am a lens based artist living in Brighton, United Kingdom. I work at the University of Brighton as a Technical Demonstrator in the Photography department. I specialise in analogue photography, and the Darkroom. It is important to me to create all my images by hand. I construct my own still life scenes, photograph with a large format 8x10 camera, hand develop the films, then handprint the images myself in the darkroom.

I have completed both a bachelors of Arts degree at Plymouth University, and Masters in Photography at the University of Brighton. Previously, I have also completed an Art Foundation at Weymouth College.