Inspired by the wilderness of nature and the traces of human presence, my artwork explores our relationship with place, memory and the passage of time. I'm drawn to environments and objects that hold stories: places shaped by history, weather, growth and human intervention, where beauty can be found in both what remains and what is changing.

As a working-class woman born in Walsall, my early experience of growing up in a post-industrial town left me with a fascination for places in transition. The town's former leather-making industry, abandoned factories and disused canals offered a landscape marked by both its industrial past and an uncertain future. I became interested in the histories embedded in places, and in the traces of lives and experiences that might otherwise go unnoticed.

I found a sense of possibility in the art studios of Walsall College, where I studied a Foundation Degree in Art. Encountering David Hockney's Californian paintings and the atmospheric warmth of Van Gogh's Café Terrace at Night showed me how art could transport us somewhere beyond our immediate surroundings. I became fascinated by the ability of an artwork to create an atmosphere, open up our imagination and alter how we experience the world.

This desire to create an immersive experience remains central to my practice. I'm interested in the relationship between impermanence and wellbeing: how things grow, decay, disappear and begin again, and how there can be beauty and meaning in being present with all of it. Nature offers an endless source of inspiration through its adaptability, abundance and continual transformation. I'm equally drawn to places where the natural world and human presence meet, finding beauty in their contrasts, tensions and unexpected connections.

Through painting and increasingly experimental approaches to materials, I explore these ideas through layers, textures and ambiguous visual cues. My process is intuitive, allowing images to emerge gradually rather than working towards a fixed outcome. I'm interested in the way materials can hold traces of time, experience and transformation, and in creating work that invites the viewer to pause, look more closely and become immersed in an atmosphere that may feel at once familiar and unfamiliar.

Ultimately, I hope my work offers a space for discovery and reflection: an opportunity to step outside the velocity of everyday life, become more attentive to the world around us and find beauty in its complexity, uncertainty and constant change.