What have been the major developments in your work since we last interviewed you for The Monthly?
If I think about the trajectory over the last few years, one of the major developments were that I was interested in reducing my role in community arts. I still wanted to be involved in community arts, not just in a full-time capacity. I wanted to spend a lot more time, give a lot more focus to being in the studio.
Then Covid came along and I made a reassessment of my life and I became a foster parent during that time. Covid was a strange period of time in that I think quite a few people, not just me, looked at their life at that moment, and what came out of my thought process, settled on the question of family. Now I went into fostering a little naively, and I wasn’t even sure what fostering was, but I am 5 years in to fostering now.
That seems like a huge decision to make?
I had the time and I think I get it although I wasn’t a parent, I didn’t have children of my own, and I didn’t fully understand what it meant to be a parent, and I have also had to learn and adapt to a whole series of needs that young people have. Sometimes that can be trauma based needs, and it is still a massive learning curve for me, but one that I am enjoying immensely.
Is there anything that has come out of that experience which has benefited you?
I am a single parent, and I have learned that I can support young people, I can provide a home, I can provide a space where young people can develop, and I am now in my third placement.
And is it fair to say that these life experiences have penetrated your artistic activity?
What I understand more than ever about my work is that my entire life has actually gone into my practise. Whether that was going to Kenya and having particular experiences of places, spaces and people and of course many other activities and experiences have found their way into my practise.
From there, I think it was only natural that fostering would eventually find its way into my work because becoming a parent comes with a way to feel, you have to navigate your way around it, and it changes your expectations and the way you live your life.
All of those new experiences, and all that has gone before, finds its way into your art?
The new show is quite deliberate, and I know very clearly why I am making it. I’m living in Northern Ireland with all the complexities of that experience along with my new life experiences. The new work is a combination of two worlds; a blending of my experiences, some good, some bad, some fun, joyous, curious and frivolous, some serious and even difficult experiences.
That is why the exhibition is called the Garden of Eden because it is all of the elements being brought together. Even the absurdity of life is reflected within the work and it is a moment in my artistic practise where I very clearly know what it is that I am doing.
Information about the Garden of Eden exhibition can be found at the link below
