Personal Projects

From time to time I get a bee in my bonnet to do a personal project, so when this happens, it'll be published here in one of the drop own menus. The two projects here were both undertaken with my partner, the artist Jeannie Clarke. There is a project description with each project, which may be quite lengthy, so if all you want to do is look at images, just skip all the words! However, as both of us are also musicians, some of the projects involve music, so there's something for everyone.

Briefly: 

The House of Mercy Project:
Was one of those things when you wake up in the middle of the night with an idea and have to go downstairs and write it up in case you forget. You can hear all about it in the promotional video that was assembled by our friend and video artist, Can Aksoy from all the various photographs and paintings we made over an entire year during the pandemic. The weirdest thing is, apart from one of the dancers, who we knew from pre-Covid days (remember them?), we still haven't physically met any of our collaborators. Hopefully, they'll pop up when we exhibit in 2023. Check out the drop down menu.

Borderlands
I lived in Denmark for almost 30 years and as a foreigner who became almost Danish, I've been fascinated by cultural identity for a long time. The country's relationship to its larger southern neighbour, Germany, is fractious, to say the least. Most of the Jutland peninsula was occupied by Prussia following the war of 1865. During the First World War, many Danes from south Denmark were either conscripted or chose to fight in the German Army and then following a brief period of independence, the entire country was occupied by Nazi Germany during the Second World War. The scars still run deep and there are national minorities on both sides of the border. Living in the UK and with Brexit about to happen, I felt adrift from my European identity and wanted to explore how other people along European borders felt about their national identity. It felt natural to begin with Denmark and then reach out to other countries. I was lucky enough to receive some financial support from a Danish funding body and the project began. It's an ongoing thing which will be finished when it's finished.... so watch this space!