I’ve tried quite hard over the years to create a soundbitey mission statement, encapsulating my artistic and philosophical concerns. They tend to be a bit wanky, so I usually delete them. (However, if you are determined to read something esoteric, please see the Artist’s Statement.)
I was born in Glasgow in 1977, not quite in the correct format, and went to the sort of school, common of the era, that is entirely composed of asbestos. Then, in unlikely turn of events, read Experimental Psychology & Philosophy at Oxford, where I entirely failed to assimilate. I worked for a short time in academic publishing but could not overcome disability to the extent that normal working life was viable. I began making artwork whilst on long-term disability benefits and, after a decade or so, professionalised through disability arts funding. This means the artworld is frustratingly intent on ghettoizing me.
My practice began with photography, which remains central, then became paper interventions on streets, and grew to be large installations that I would enlist friends to help with, before it finally dawned on me that I was an artist and sought funding to achieve these strange endeavours. I find my artwork is vocational and rather compulsive – it’s my way of trying to find an interface with an otherwise alienating world.
Before art, a previous life, I used to have moderate success with poetry, publishing in, well, mostly magazines that aren’t around anymore (Rialto, The Frogmore Papers, Orbis). Although I don’t write these days, I was shortlisted for the 2015 Montreal Poetry Prize.
I’m passionate about music and a whore to every genre. I no longer play the cello (a great mercy to mankind), but can still occasionally be caught with guitar in hand or at the keys. I sing in small classical choirs, but have also always sung folk songs. Sometimes I can even be persuaded to do so in public.
I currently exist in Milton Keynes.
Some very lovely people in Malaga made some work inspired by mine, and I answered their questions in this wee video: