Holly and Sara - A Family Portrait - 2021

Historically, the portrait has been a hallmark of aristocratic families, a display of lineage, pride, and wealth. In a prominent place at the centre of the home, above a fireplace, or in a gallery on show to guests, portraits espoused the ‘family’ as society said it was ‘supposed’ to look – upper class, European, with a father, mother, and children. Adopting and subverting tradition, this work depicts the artist’s friends and their two dogs, Elton and Cheeko, to become a proud statement of family that celebrates the LGBTQ+ community. All families merit equality, recognition, and belonging, deserving to be proud of who they are.

The Endless Cycle - Vanity, Greed, Ambition

This work focuses on the patterns in humankind that hold us back as a race and illustrates how the elite are often selected by breeding rather than suitability to lead. Vanity, greed and ambition turn the powerful away from the welfare of those they have the means to care for and I can’t help but wonder, how far have we truly progressed? When I look around, I see a world that is entrenched in the very same corruptions that shaped the past. I see it in the environment, in poverty, in inequality, in the wealth divide, and war.
Can this change? Or will the cycle continue, just with a more contemporary façade and different faces? Admittedly, I am cynical about human nature and our ability to put the welfare of others over personal gain. Yet cynic or not, I must hope. We now live in a world with weapons that could cause our extinction and a habitat that is being destroyed, a world where an invisible line in the earth is enough for thousands to kill and be killed for, and where among those thousands, lay children.
I must hope, because to not hope would be to despair. I hope that there is a way we can evolve past these instincts, I hope in the power of community and kindness, and I hope in a future of safety, of equality, and of peace.

Beautiful, fleeting things - vanity (still in progress)

A necessary evil - ambition (still in progress)