As a self-taught emerging artist, art absolutely enriches my life. I studied literature instead of art and think of my painting practice as visual poetry. My work explores weathering, erosion and transformation in nature as a metaphor for the metamorphosis of the female body over her lifetime. It includes an autobiographical investigation of the idea of ‘self’ and ‘other’, of difference and conformity: the pressure of female perfectionism; the challenges of motherhood; the multiple roles of womanhood and the cycle of fertility.

Within my current body of work, I examine the marks, lines and scars in nature and on the human body by cutting canvases and works on paper and re-assembling them into new compositions.  Forms become fractured, broken and disrupted. I studied literature and writing has always been part of my practice.  I use words as a means of understanding and interrupting the world around me.  I frequently dig and gouge words out of wet paint as part of my painting process.  Sometimes I allow these fragments of recorded thoughts become part of the finished painting.  Other times, they are partially or fully buried beneath further layers of paint.

My process includes gathering, mark making and mono printing with found objects washed up by the tide, storms and human debris, such as uprooted branches, seaweed and plastic rubbish. My painting practice is both fast and slow: a combination of intense bursts of high-energy, gestural painting and long, slow periods of waiting and watching. This process captures of time and movement, gradually building up multi-layered forms. I fold, lift and shape raw canvas and paper to manipulate diluted paint, allowing it to bloom, fade and dry into tidelines of pigment.

There is no waste. Excess medium becomes the beginning of new paintings. Sometimes I work on a painting for months and then continue on the reverse. The marks of paint that bled through the canvas become a starting point for a new direction.

In 2023, I founded the Warrior Artist podcast as a source of inspiration and reference for Irish visual artists.