An account
I am an artist with a background as a systems and process consultant and chartered accountant exploring language and the relationships between art, accounting, ecology and systems thinking. I use a range of media and approaches including referencing my own family and work histories, exploring archives, drawing, moving image, sound, poetry, printmaking, textile embroidery, installation and writing.
Soil: What kind of civilisation cannot hear its own rivers?
Systems: What kind of system cannot hear its own people?
Sensitivities: What kind of intelligence cannot hear what keeps it alive?
I seek out moments of loss and despair, hope and humour, to ask questions and give an account, capturing moments of fragility, ‘slip-ups’, injustices, sometimes tragedy. I document the consequences hidden in the illusory systems of efficiency and control. Sources include crucial work done at Bidston Observatory for D-day; the Guardian Journals coverage of covid, the Johnson years; and the on-going Post Office Scandal.
Through hard work, despite being a non-graduate, I was taken on and trained by KPMG as a Chartered Accountant. I later transferred to Consulting in the early days of systems implementation in the 90s. The KPMG ethos emphasised ‘People, Process, Technology’. Towards the end of the 90s as ‘Technology’ became the dominant driver of change there was greater emphasis on the bottom line and the ways in which technology could reduce ‘headcount’. Boutique consultancies became involved and stress levels rose. With the rise of complex systems people became immaterial, in a material and profit motivated world. Disillusioned I left, and began my fine art journey.
The early life of my mother, taken into care aged 3 months in 1942, became a significant influence. The accumulation of poverty and desperate struggle of her family in Burnley, the heart of the industrial revolution in Britain, led to one small moment during a blackout in Southampton that created a cascade of correspondence covering every aspect of my mums young life in care. I was touched by the banality and ordinariness of her life entangled in reams of paperwork and forms.
I began to make a connection to my experience in business systems and accounting asking the question 'what does it mean to give an account?’ The starting point for my textile works was stitching the document detailing my mothers wardrobe at age 18 when she left care.