Using self-portraiture, as a variety of female characters I stage a serious of images to create cinematic & dreamlike narratives; that explore the idea of Doppelgangers & Parallel lives; the possibility that you can co-exist in multiple universes, alternative realities and dreamscapes at once. Where past and present, reality and fantasy are all captured.
Cinema, magic, the counterculture & female characters of the 1960s and 1970s are key to my work and I seek to create cinematic stills using all analogue equipment & film to create specific atmospheres and emotions. World Cinema, in particular that of Tarkovsky, Antonioni, and Lynch alongside B.Movies all influence and are reflected in my work.
Cinema is such a big influence on my work and I remember watching for the first time Kieslowski’s ‘The Double Life of Veronique’ and becoming fascinated with the idea of doppelgangers and the possibility that anyone and everyone could have a double existing elsewhere within the universe. A phenomena that become increasingly curious and exciting when we snatch a glimpse of these doubles.
Through these female characters I seek to explore the hidden, the unknown and feelings of loneliness, longing and an ambivalent sense of disconnection and connectedness.
My work is also directly influenced by dreams and the experience of dreaming, be it asleep or awake; when we drift to that magical, liminal place of endless potential and possibilities. I’ve always been a dreamer and even at age 6, my teacher wrote in a school report that my ‘propensity to day dream’ was ‘alarming’ and that one day I’d need to learn the harsh reality that ‘dreaming won’t pay bills’.
I grew up and live on the beautiful island of Anglesey, Wales, a place which has shaped my visual imagination with its highly cinematic landscapes, mysterious seascapes and biblical skies; the special light, space and atmospheres that lend so well to the creation of dream worlds.
Film and Analogue processes suit the worlds I want to create due to their mercurial and random quality making it the perfect choice for creating dreamscapes. There is also I feel a romance to film due its magic and beauty- even its smell for me is evocative and nostalgic.
I see artistic creation as a kind of alchemy in which the magical energies of the subconscious realm give birth to ideas that find shape and form in the physical world on film as art work.
