A visual artist. It’s good that the type of activities artists undertake are continually changing but this makes it difficult to come up with a definition… maybe an artist is someone who uses actions, images and/or objects to engage with the world and try to make sense of it.

I am really open on this. And happy to respond to others’ starting points. I propose that we locate our area of inquiry through scratching our heads together, talking and tryouts. So the little list below is an indication of approach rather than a plan; Recently I have been thinking about risk. Or more specifically perceptions of risk. The relationship between risk and public levels of fear. I have observed with interest the rhythm of pace-breath-conversation as participants walk around monastic cloisters. Symmetry; its ubiquity, its limits. It feels as if there is something profound here. Questions – are they the only sound starting point for research? I f so, should we consider unsound starting points? Are questions sometimes too prescriptive, too confident, too smug? Can they miss the point? What about wondering? I am interested in the dynamics of collaboration itself.

I would like to work with someone (or more than one person) from a background that is new to me. The idea is that our different approaches and experiences come together forming a creative situation in which new work evolves. In my experience of making collaborative or dialogic work, it can take a period of discussion, play and try-outs before the focus becomes apparent.
Sometimes, in cross-disciplinary work, the artist’s role becomes reduced to that of illustrator – i.e to provide visuals for another discipline’s insights. However I feel that art is capable of much more; like any other practice, art’s job is to explore. The art process becomes enriched by doing this in collaboration with other perspectives and processes.

New.

Yes, I’m definitely looking for collaborators, though not people from specific disciplines. More, I’m interested in working with people with different understandings and approaches to me.

I bring practical skills in recording and editing audio and video: experience of performing live and to camera: writing skills: expertise in physical processes and making, and a love of physical problem solving. Both as a collaborator and a lecturer I have experience of sharing ideas with others. And I am used to entering areas I know little about – as an undergraduate in Fine Art, I persuaded my lecturers to enrol me on a day release course in sub-atomic physics. Since then I have worked with a theatre producer, a roofer, a film make-up artist, mechanical engineers, a dancer, workers in a furniture factory and more. I am interested to see what happens as people ideas and objects move between places and initiated a five year performance project about cultural ignorance, made in collaboration with artists, theorists and curators in other countries. This led to ‘So communication… translating each others’ words’, a book of commissioned essays, short stories, artworks etc. funded by Arts Council England. Many of my projects involve approaching strangers and fabricating objects or situations in order to generate discussion.