60” x 40” Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Birch Panel 2025

” In order to be who you are, you must be willing to let go of who you think you are”

*‘The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself’ by Michael Singer.

 We are not our history, but our history remains with us.

I was born into a working-class family in a class biased society in the mill town of Lancaster England.

We lived in the government tenement buildings alongside the river Lune built below the historic Lancaster castle on top of the hill, a constant reminder of our place in the world.

My father seeing that there was no future for us in England decided to immigrate with our family to Canada so that we could live a life without the manufactured culture of a class-based society.

In my new series I have taken iconic images and symbols from my past and re-configured them in an abstract format to take back my identity separate from a class structure. It was important to me to reference my past as a starting point and acknowledge my personal history so that I could move forward and create a new narrative for my life with my art.

I believe that we are who we choose to be separate from any outside constraints and by ‘untethering’ our past and learned culture we can become that person we were intended to be.