My early career was in illustration – for many years I worked on commissions in advertising and publishing until I eventually specialised in children’s books. It was not until I took the leap and enrolled back at university to study fine art that I felt able to fully embrace a new direction. After years of working to deadlines and briefs I found myself drawn to a freer, more expressive art. I usually work in oils or pastels, but in particular I love the immediacy, varied mark making and pure colour of pastels, and the directness of pigment to paper. I also regularly experiment in other mediums such as acrylics, charcoal, collage or, more recently, clay. I find life drawing a great work-out for observational skills and have been running a weekly session for over a year.
Much of my work begins either on location or as sketches. I have always loved creating and am rarely without a sketch book or something to scribble on. I live in East Anglia and I find the coastline a source of endless inspiration, along with the rivers and the expansive skies. I can spend hours sitting by the sea with my pastels, although sometimes I’m fully set up with easel and oils as I also love working en plein-air. Back in my studio I push these drawings or paintings in many directions and also play with scale.
For me, art allows a way of seeing differently. In my abstract work a feeling can become a visual exploration, an emotion or maybe an expressive gesture. There is so much inspiration all around.
Exhibitions:
2026:
The Pastel Society Annual Exhibition, Mall Galleries
The Arborealists at Staverton Park. The Minories, Colchester
2025:
• ‘Looking into Staverton Thicks with the Aborealists’
Gallery East
• Solo Show: ‘Conversations in Colour’ at Gallery East
• Summer Contemporary Snape Maltings
• Still Life exhibition Gallery East
• The Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour Annual exhibition, Mall Galleries
• Pastel Society Annual Exhibition, Mall Galleries
2024:
• Summer Landscape Exhibition at Gallery East
• Sir John Hurt Art Prize Show (shortlisted for the prize) – Holt Arts Festival
• Society of Women Artists Annual Exhibition, Mall Galleries
• Reality to Abstraction at Gallery East
• Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours Exhibition, Mall Galleries
• Pastel Society Exhibition, Mall Galleries2023:
• Solo Show: ‘Connections, Boundaries and Place’ Gallery East
2018-22
• Gallery East, Woodbridge
• Ipswich County Show
• Ipswich Art Society Annual Exhibition – Ipswich Gallery
• Herts Open, St Albans Museum
• Masons Yard St James’s
• University of Hertfordshire Annual Show
• Viewpoint, University of Hertfordshire
Other:
• 1989 – Solo Show ‘Summer Pastimes’ Medici Gallery, Grafton Street W1
• 1980 – 1989: Ayot St Lawrence Annual Show
• 1985: Readers Digest ‘Young Illustrators exhibition’ Covent Garden.
• 1985: Benson and Hedges Illustration Gold Award Exhibition, London SW1 and
national tour
• 1986-2024: Illustrator for multiple children’s books for Hachette, Orchard Books,
Penguin Books, Hodder and Stoughton, Lion Publishing and others.
Qualifications and Prizes:
• 2026 Pastel Society Catalogue Award
• 2024 Pastel Society Catalogue Award, Second Prize and the Bob Last Prize
• 2019: MA Hons in Fine Art (distinction) University of Hertfordshire
• 2000: Sainsbury’s Award for Book Illustration
• 1986: BA Hons in Illustration (distinction) University of Westmister
