Nostalgia has, and I suspect always will be, my main source of inspiration. Whether that be from the memories of my childhood, or found family photographs, both serving as a reminder as to how familiar people and places have changed through the years. I’m ultimately chasing a time that no longer exists, wistfully longing for the past and re-living it through my art.

Through exploring these old found photographs I replicate them with my pencils and paintbrush, focusing on the little details to capture the features of familiar faces. I have a great interest in investigating photographs and for me, painting is a way of understanding them, specifically those of my close family, especially my parents.

I’m captivated by the contradictory emotions nostalgia evokes, feeling a sense of both joy and loss. Portraiture has always been my chosen genre to work in, whether it be in a rough pencil sketch or a more fine tuned acrylic painting, It’s where I feel most content. I take pride in my knowledge of colour theory which aids me in blending the correct skin tones, helping me create photorealistic works.

My influences vary, but all remain rooted in the past from the pop culture introduced to me by my parents from decades passed. The timeless ‘teen coming of age’ films of the 1980’s produced by John Hughes, or the classic songs of the era that have now infiltrated my music taste from the countless times my dad would play ‘The Monkees’ and ‘Jamiroquai’ when I was a child.

It’s important that I incorporate humour into my work within the way I treat the images, as a means of dulling the heavy tone behind it in relation to my parents separation, something that has deeply affected my practice and how I perceive the photographs I paint. Through techniques like collage, I create narratives with my found images, picking photos without any rhyme or reason to create a rich arrangement of colours, expressions and retro paraphernalia. It’s a process of both mourning and celebrating things that have passed, offering me a feeling of comfort and ease.