Reflecting on your artistic journey, what key influences – whether artists, experiences, or ideas – have shaped your unique vision and ultimately led you to pursue the artistic path you're on today?

My work has always been about my relationship, or lack of relationship, to the natural world. When I moved to Wirksworth, ten years ago, my work was quite illustrative, and critical of romanticism and our ecological malaise, yet didn’t envisage or offer an alternative, and this became a frustration. During this time, I became good friends with Gavin Munro from Full Grown, who literally grows chairs and objects from single trees, I told him I felt quite detached and separate from nature and the environment, and he didn’t understand my position as he’d been closely watching trees grow for years. It made me reconsider the material history of my painting practice to my locality and how I used process.

I live in Derbyshire, England, which was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, where cotton became a mass-produced product, but before that, linen was locally grown and processed for small community use. Oil painting is painted on linen and uses linseed oil as a binder, which comes from the same plant. As soon as I started thinking more ecologically (like Full Grown) material processes and conceptual ideas became interwoven, and everything I do now comes from this place of interconnection. I ended up growing my own field of flax, harvesting, processing, and finally weaving my own canvas with it. 

In terms of other artists that have inspired me, it’s people who I’ve worked closely with, such as John Newling, Peter Mathews and Victoria Lucas. They all have rigorous ecologically rooted art practices.

What values or principles underpin your commitment to slow, pre-industrial craft processes, and how do these values inform your artistic choices and your broader perspective on the relationship between art and the environment?

I want the work to be the physical embodiment and manifestation of a different relationship with nature than the Judeo-Christian capitalist one we are unfortunately entrenched in. I’m interested in indigenous and pagan ideologies, where humans are curators and stewards of the land. The choice of materials and the processes I use in my work relinquish a certain control and order over the work, which, in turn, feels like a collaboration with the intricate forces of nature itself. Slow craft processes allow an intimate relationship and care with the natural materials, where subtle nuances are understood and expanded upon. I want the works to embody a set of values rather than represent something. 

Uncovering the unknown is now something I seek for in my work, I like the idea of finding something from the processes and materials I choose and following the logic instilled in that, like watching a seed germinate and grow into a plant. I try not to have an image in my mind of what the work will be when I start it, but rather follow where the processes take me. 

The buon fresco technique is a central aspect of your practice. What can you tell us about this technique, and how does it fit with the overall message of your work?

In recent years, I have learned to mix and use traditional lime mortars and plasters as part of various house renovation projects.

During this exploration of material and process, I realised that I was beginning to use the materials of buon fresco, translated as ‘true fresh’, the traditional painting technique that pre-dates oil painting on linen.

The technique of buon fresco only allows a short window of time where pigment may be added to the wet plaster. When applied correctly, the finely powdered pigment effectively impregnates itself within the surface of the plaster.

These lime-plaster works are process-led, using building materials and tools. There is no use of paintbrushes or gestures, nor the focus to engage in that language. By purposefully removing that language from the act of creation allows my involvement and use of materials to act as a more effective conduit for the processes and metaphors the work explores.

The work provides an opportunity for me to explore different materials – pigments, sand and lime – and their historical relationship to my locality of the Derbyshire Dales, where these materials have been extracted from the landscape for centuries.

Again, the message of the work is one of embedding myself in materials and processes that have a rich history to my locality and trying to find a poetic balance between the final surface image and how it was made.

What can you tell us about your submitted work, Falling Earth? Could you walk us through the creative journey of this piece, highlighting the challenges and discoveries you encountered while bringing it to life?

Falling Earth, like the other fresco works in this series, started by figuring out how to get the pigment onto the drying plaster without using brushes. I liked the idea of trying to catch the uncapturable (possibly a metaphor for painting generally), so the net motif came into place. I make my own hemp nets with different thickness ropes. I wanted them to intentionally be irregular, so they looked like repeating patterns found in nature rather than a man-made object. The nets act as masks, allowing the pigments to fall through them.  The pigments are dropped through fine meshes so that the fine particles are dispersed evenly. The nets can be moved around and overlapped throughout the process, it’s a very quick, intense and intuitive way of working, and the final image is always a surprise. If I’m not happy with what’s there at the end, I can scrape the plaster off and start again. The process of making the work can take as little as 10 minutes. 

How do you achieve the sense of lightness and distorted visual depth in your paintings, and how does it contribute to your attempt to visualize the invisible and capture the ethereal qualities of the universe?

The more I make these kinds of works, the more subtle techniques I pick up to push the sense of space and depth on what, in essence, is a flat slab of rock. You can add colour to the initial layers of plaster, so you’re working with a mid-tone ground to begin with.  Light and darker pigments are then thrown onto the wet plaster through the mesh and nets. Water needs to be sprayed onto the pigments to bind them onto the plaster. Some decisions are made in the moment to try and promote the depth, but a lot of it still feels like chance. It’s only when you remove the nets do you see what’s happened. It’s an exciting way of working. 

These works attempt to capture the ethereal and ephemeral qualities of that which makes up the emptiness of space. We now know that empty space is full of matter that resonates at different frequencies to solid things. There are always things out there in the ether, floating about, things falling from the sky.

How does the inclusion of cosmic pigments expand the scope of your exploration of matter in space, and what metaphysical dimensions do they add to your art?

All the pigments I use are earth pigments, many are ones that I’ve found and processed myself. The meteorite pigment (from Kremer Pigmente) is used to make the dark dot shapes on the surface, they act as a compositional tool and create more depth. Meteorite traces are found everywhere and remind us that our planet is intrinsically connected to the rest of our universe. I’m always seeking a universal if not cosmic, perspective on things, and my artworks feel like a natural extension of this pursuit. 

Your commitment to sustainability is a central aspect of your artistic practice, reflected not only in the themes you explore but also in the materials you use. What advice can you offer to artists who aim to cultivate a more environmentally sustainable practice?

I work part-time as an art lecturer, and I sometimes see students do very literal things around sustainability, like make a dolphin out of plastic rubbish. It becomes a one-line joke, with an obvious punchline, and when you get it, the work has nothing else. Our connection to nature and the environment is very complex, and I would say each person has their own way of exploring that relationship and ultimately changing the dynamic of it. I hope my work allows space to think and ask questions of what it’s trying to embody.

Natural materials are as much an aesthetic decision as they are an environmental one. 

For me, there needs to be a logic running through the ideas and materials. I think there’s a depth of meaning that is embedded in the work when an artist really considers this. 

Looking ahead, how do you envision your work evolving to further explore the interconnectedness of art, the environment, and the cosmos?

In the next few years, I’m planning to expand my fresco practice to exist on large-scale walls in architectural spaces, both internally and externally. I’m keen to collaborate with architects and designers who have shared ecological concerns. I’m hoping the large-scale frescos could be made in collaboration with communities, work alongside interesting planting schemes and even act as walls to hang other artworks on. 

Art and artists play various roles in the fabric of contemporary society. How do you see artistic practices advancing sustainability and social consciousness?

Art is a useful tool to start conversations and challenge ideas. Brian Eno and Timothy Morton are against art that tries to frighten the audience with facts about our ecological crisis.  They instead propose, and I agree with them, that art could be used to make people fall in love with nature and our amazing planet again. 

What message or call to action would you like to share with our readers?

Making art is only a small part of the wider things you can do to help in promoting a more sustainable ideological shift. Every encounter in the world is an opportunity to question your belief structures and make different decisions. We do have a lot of power if we decide to use it. 

Read more about the artist here.

All images courtesy of Geoff Litherland.