“The capacity of a work to explain reality is in a way much clearer and richer with a much broader range of nuances than normal language” Antoni Tapies

My work is ecologically based and is essentially about conveying information about the relationship between people and the natural world. The relativity of time and history is also important in my work. I work frequently with organic materials, making my own hand-made papers, my raw materials coming from the plants, grasses and tree-barks of the Scottish countryside, the colours and textures of the landscape, therefore, being naturally inherent in the papers themselves. One can think of plant-papers as having a memory, holding information about the past which can be transferred to the present.

Since childhood I have been a dedicated walker and it has always been an integral part of my working practice, indeed of my daily existence, providing not just physical and mental refreshment but also creative stimulation. Having done some preliminary research on the physical, political and economic influences which have shaped an area, one comes, in walking a landscape, to know the whole environment Each piece of work, therefore, contains a journey. On each journey I may collect objects, both
natural and man-made, which may then be incorporated into the finished piece. I hope in each piece to achieve an equilibrium between the outer form of the paper-piece and the inherent qualities stemming from the particular plant materials, with a balance of form and content, structure and concept.

By using an ancient material like paper as my main medium of artistic expression, I hope to demonstrate the versatility and magic of a material so ubiquitous as to be taken for granted, showing how it can be used not only as a substrate, (since I often use my own texts), but also to transmit both visual and non-verbal messages.

The papermaking process itself is a metaphor for the endless cycle of birth, life, death and decay common to all nature.