Through my work, I am interested in depicting people’s different emotional states in a range of situations and how people connect with and respond to their surroundings. The characters that I paint, draw and animate have no distinguishing features and no specific gender. I want the audience to be able to project themselves onto these figures. Recently, I have become interested in intimacy, how social groups are formed and how they help to build social relationships between people. In today’s society, where social media is prevalent, the way relationships are formed and maintained is a fascinating subject. 

 

There are a wide range of factors that affect the establishment of social relationships, including the development of new technologies and online networks. Whilst creating new and convenient platforms for community and relationship building, social networks can also cause fewer and fewer people to engage in face-to-face communication - for example, many people prefer to chat on online because it avoids the possibility of awkward social encounters. Sometimes, even when socialising face-to-face, people seem to build an invisible barrier between one another, separating each from the other. Moving to different counties and cultures can also bring a sense of dislocation and doubt, leading to a failure of communication and understanding and, ultimately, to a lack of intimacy.

 

I make short animated drawings, photographs and paintings. My aim is to develop a broad and multi-media practice. The works mainly focus on 'distance' and 'group loneliness'. Even if we appear to be together, we can seem to be far away from one another. And in unit 3 I might make full animations or movies.