50 × 50 cm, oil on canvas
2021
Created for an exhibition to commemorate the Oxford-Leiden Link’s 75th Anniversary, this self-portrait was a response to the Young Rembrandt show at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum. It represents a reflection on my past and future.
30 × 40 cm, oil on canvas
2023
What began as a study of the light and form of the decaying rose blossom became an exploration of the richness of the universe contained its petals. As the painting developed, ideas of power, ageing, identity, and possession emerged.
40 × 50 cm, oil on canvas
not yet finished
For this piece I fashioned a ruff out of plastic bags and styled my fellow artist as a 17th century Dutch noblewoman. It is intended to be an homage to Frans Hals, as well as an exploration of the markers of status and the destructive practices of resource extraction that often accompany them — in this case the reliance of current-day fast fashion on fossil fuels and their byproducts.
40 × 50 cm, oil on canvas
2024
These roses appeared like shimmering planets in the vastness of space: blooming and imploding in a choreographed orbit, all temporary.
40 × 50 cm, oil on canvas
2022
The power of portraiture is in communicating something about the ineffable nature of personhood and personality. I am interested in subjects whose faces contain a kaleidoscope of feeling, or expressions that aren’t easy to read, because this indicates the richness of their internal world and private experience of themselves.
40 × 50 cm, oil on canvas
2023
This slightly wild and unkempt bouquet is a nod to the formidable canon of still life paintings by Dutch and Flemish masters, and also references the Dutch cultural identification with tulips, similar to England’s symbolic connection to the rose.
30 × 40 cm, oil on canvas
2023
A self-portrait is an examination of being the seer and the seen, an attempt at inhabiting two opposite positions. I deliberately chose unflattering and dramatic light on my face: as I age, I feel less visible as an object of desire, but more powerful as a determiner of my selfhood.
46 × 61 cm, oil on canvas
2023
A sleek and odern bouquet against a bold background, this painting represents the generations of tulips bulbs that culminated in these satiny Black Parrots, as well as the peonies, from their origins in the courtyards of Chinese emperors, to our tabletops today. I’m curious about what flowers say about wealth, identity, capitalism, and international movement of commercial goods in this modern era.
50 × 70 cm, oil on canvas
2025
She is a bit wild, but tied up, peaceful yet somewhat maudlin. The tilt of her head, closed eyes and posture suggest an intensely internal and private moment, with the space above her head allowing for her thoughts and sensations to exist outside of her. We as viewers become tangled in the scene as voyeurs.
40 × 50 cm, oil on canvas
2023
During the storied ‘tulip mania’ of 17th century Holland, the cause of the rarefied markings of the most prized varieties of tulips was a fatal virus which then caused their destruction and the implosion of the market. This painting showcases the beguiling flounces of the Black Parrot, and its title is a play on the French word for pink.
40 × 60cm, oil on canvas
2022
She is haughty, coy, defiant, vulnerable, self-conscious, self-assured, self-possessed. It is otherwise unremarkable to paint women and flowers, trapped as they are in a value system in which these things only symbolise beauty, and beauty is only a capitalistic currency. By this transactional cycle of circular logic — if I am beautiful, I am desired; if I am desired, I am beautiful — we trade our agency for approval in order to gain a sense of belonging to the very system that strips us of power.
30 × 40 cm, oil on canvas
2025
I grew my own Black Parrot tulips which were robust in the garden, but began to droop as soon as I brought them in. I paired them with the windmill vase I found at a charity shop, and set them against a background of of flower-patterned fabric, a bemusing juxtaposition of the real and the symbolic.
40 × 60 cm, oil on canvas
2025
In seeking a more obvious visual connection between my usual subjects of flowers and faces, this diptych also illuminates a more poetic alliance. It is a study of colour on its surface, but between the peonies' extravagance and the woman's inscrutable gaze is a portrayal of the spiritual connection of humans to beauty and back again.