Nudes nominee

The Forest is a conscious departure from masculinity and modernity, in medium and subject matter. My subjects are my contemporaries, from my global community of young artistsusing their bodies for self-expression, uniquely connected in the digital age through social media. Recent puritanical legislation around the globe has inhibited how we connect and share our work online, but we continue to create undeterred.
Being from the same community we have an immediate familiarity and intimacy that other (typically male) artists aren’t privy to. We are nude, but it is an unselfconscious and primordial nudity, reclaimed from the male gaze and with a softness and intimacy rarely captured in a male lens. We are in nature and a part of it; we are skyclad witches and exultant earth goddesses in communion with nature, vulnerable yet unafraid
The timelessness of the setting is complemented by the medium; black and white film, processed and printed by hand. The final prints are not airbrushed, drawing attention to the images as objects, in an age where photography is everywhere yet mostly incorporeal and ephemeral.
The images of The Forest are an expression of freedom, defiance, community and liberation of spirit, continuing a tradition stretching back generations.

I am a British LGBTQ+ visual artist working primarily with analogue photography, specialising in nude portraiture. I studied Fine Art at Central St Martins and continue to live and work in London whilst exhibiting internationally.
In 2020 I was awarded a grant by Groundwork London to deliver a new project for the Join the Docks Festival. I also received a Gold Award in the San Francisco Bay International Photo Award, and Honourable Mentions in Photos Des Femmes’ seeingWOMEN Awards, the Monovisions Photography Awards, the Vienna International Photography Awards, the 15th Pollux Awards and in the 15th Julia Margaret Cameron Award. In 2019 I was awarded an Artist Residency prize and a Special Mention of the Jury Award in photography from the Mediterranean Contemporary Art Prize. Also in 2019 I was a semi-finalist in the Head On Portrait Prize, obtained 3rd place in Nudes from the Monochrome Photography Awards, received an Honourable Mention at the Tokyo International Foto Awards, and was an official selection for the Imago Lisboa Meeting Point portfolio reviews. In 2018 & 2019 I was a nominee for the PhotogrAphy Grant. In 2014 I received the Silverprint/Photofusion Black and White Photography Award.