My practice explores the psychological inheritance of family, culture and upbringing, and the ways in which our early environments shape the people we become. Working between abstraction and figuration, I draw on imagined landscapes and fragmented forms to explore the complex relationship between who we are, where we come from and who we consciously choose to be.

I am interested in the parts of ourselves that remain unseen — the shadow self, the imprints of past experiences and the influences we continue to negotiate throughout our lives. My paintings consider how these layers of experience accumulate, shift and sometimes surface in unexpected ways.

Alongside this, my work acknowledges the profound influence of connection and belonging. The complexities of family, the people who shape us and the quiet reassurance of being loved and understood sit alongside more difficult histories. I am interested in holding these contradictions together: the vulnerability and resilience, the inherited and the chosen, the things we carry and the things we leave behind.

Materiality is central to how these ideas are realised. I work with charcoal and successive, economical layers of paint, allowing underlying marks, traces and fragments to remain visible. The process of building, obscuring and revealing becomes an extension of the subject itself. Earlier gestures are not entirely lost but continue to inform what emerges, much like the experiences and relationships that remain beneath the surface of who we become.