Artist Info

I am a Scottish painter and experimental printmaker. I paint portraits in oils and explore the world around me through collage, colour and print. I work on paper, wood, chiffon and installation within found spaces to create alluring yet somewhat uncomfortable environments for a viewer to experience. When painting, I speak with the sitter at length and then try to capture something of their emotional state and inner world.

I was born and raised in Aberdeenshire and travelled a lot as a child with my incredibly enthusiastic parents. They are interested in literally everything and strived to squeeze the joy out of even the dullest moments. I’m glad they instilled this enthusiasm in me - it forms the basis of everything I do and make. My mum was my art teacher at high school and, wow could she teach her students to paint! During my final year, I was obsessed with art and spent every moment I could painting anyone who sat still for long enough or would pose for a photograph. I worked mainly in acrylics until a Winter Schools session at Aberdeen Art Gallery introduced me to oil paint. To say I fell in love with how oils felt barely touches that excitement.

I went off to study Painting and Printmaking at Glasgow School of Art at age 18 where I would go on to meet some incredible people who have had a significant and wonderful impact on what felt possible to create. I felt intimidated to paint, quite honestly, after a horrible experience in my first year and so I stopped painting entirely. I was lucky to gain places in art residencies such as KSDIY at the Kurt Schwitters Merzbarn, Cumbria and The Floating Art Residency (FAR) by canoe on Loch Shiel, Glenfinnan. On these adventures, I felt gloriously alive and remarkably content whilst making installation art and pigments from scratch to print with out in the middle of nowhere.

Immediately post art school, I worked odd jobs and took on graphic design commissions to support the extremely experimental phase of printmaking born out of my final degree show at GSA; my ‘nomadic’ experiences and inspired by the extraordinary folk I had the privilege to create with at this time. I got to create a mural in Mile End Hospital, Sports Medicine Department with Eilidh Page Morrisey; showed installation works at The Lillie Gallery, Milngavie with Catriona (n.) Thomson, Jade Sturrock and Hannah Lyth; created a printed chiffon nook in a Glasgow tea shop and taught life drawing at the Glasgow Art Club with Peter Scott. Alongside various group shows, an internship at Timorous Beasties and an apprenticeship in a foil printing workshop, I worked out what was possible, affordable, sustainable and enjoyable to me within printmaking. Solvent printing, eco printing, mono printing and the occasional lino print took over my brain, heart and body at this time as they each had the thrilling potential to produce a completely unique outcome. I experimented with scale and surfaces and chemical processes and found myself expressing the pure states of my emotions and thoughts through each of the different mediums.

Art and expression became a form of healing for me and, as I began to pursue more stable mental and physical health for myself, I realised I wanted to start a very practical service that could combine these elements and help other people. I started training as a massage therapist and started my business, Holistic Flint, in 2018. I would offer mobile services in creative environments to treat artistic injuries, in offices, fayres and at drag/queer nights to relax performers after their sets. I also had a private clinic room and home visits with clients to treat specific injuries on a longer term basis. I was running an art material based ASMR channel on Instagram to investigate how sensory stimulation, art materials, mark making and touch could meld together to produce a soothing experience for a viewer. I was working on the balance of this model and looking to bring art therapy qualifications into the mix when…. the lockdown hit.

From 2020, I worked with Traction Cancer Support to make digital content for their support system to patients and carers affected by specific forms of cancer. Producing expressive mark making videos, self care massage and creative approaches to sketchbooks really propelled me in to making again and I picked up a paintbrush for the first time in 8 years. I made therapeutic videos and painted portraits in an attempt to not lose my sanity during the height of the pandemic. Creative Scotland’s Bridging Bursary and loaning my artwork out for music videos supported me, whilst my beautiful budgies and loved ones brightened my days in isolation. I started painting people during FaceTime chats and, as the lockdowns eased up, I started to think about the future again.

And so in 2021, I moved back north up to Aberdeen, got a job in Aberdeen Art Gallery and a studio space at Deemouth Artists Studios and set about understanding what I had made in lockdown. I took part in a collaborative installation at Newburgh Beach with Amy Benzie as part of the collective: Experimental Use of Space and met some innovative folk from the Aberdeen art scene. My solo show, FaceTime at DAS Project Space and the current piece selected for and exhibited in Aberdeen Artists Society Exhibition at Aberdeen Art Gallery signal to me that this is a more measured period of creative activity.

I am looking forward to what’s on the horizon with Open Studio days and an installation at Bon Accord Baths. To be continued…