Sowing - Birthday Card

My love of printmaking was sparked on my Art Foundation course where the Print Studio was run by Walter Hoyle. I went on to a degree at Farnham and then a few years later completed an MA at Nottingham Trent. 30 years ago I relocated for a job at Leicester Print Workshop. I am lucky to now own my own 1838 Albion press in my studio at home in a converted Victorian Coach House in the city, but still value the community environment of a shared studio workshop and make my living as a practicing artist and occasional tutor.

My father was a botanist and I grew up in the centre of Cambridge next door to the Botanic Gardens, which we would walk through on the way to our allotment on summer evenings – all of which laid the foundations for an enduring interest and love of plants, buildings, special places and the way we value and order the spaces we create – which in turn has formed continual reference and subject matter in my life as an artist. I have a small but packed walled town garden and a precious allotment in the city… they are both places of inspiration and solace!

For more than 20 years I have worked on a body of work featuring the buildings in and around Leicester that are part of the fabric of city life. These are a mix of iconic public buildings (such as New Walk Museum or the Market Place) and those more familiar yet nevertheless architecturally notable (such as Blunts Shoes or the Turkey Café).