Bio

I started making art when I was knee-high to a grasshopper. It wasn't a conscious effort to become an artist, but rather a way of escaping into myself. Growing up in a rather racist London, I didn't have very many friends and certainly very few invites for playdates. But time spent alone became positive due to a burgeoning love of reading, watching TV, and drawing out of my favourite comics. A I developed my artistic skills, my kudos at school grew and kids started to respect my creativity. I was asked several times to take part in creative activities, such as designing sets for the Christmas play. These were very enjoyable and fulfilling moments for me, feelings I could never have hoped to enjoy as a younger person.

As I went further up the education ladder, the cultural landscape of London was fast-changing around me and the Asian in society became more of an object of curiosity than a non-entity. This meant I had a great time at art school and learned the hows and the whys of being a professional artist.

I have since those heady days of swinging London in the 1980s consistently kept up a studio practice. Through migrations from England to Australia, then to Spain, my art has been both a constant companion, as well as an anchoring point in my new surroundings, and continues to be so. It is an ability and a skill I am consistently thankful for.

Though I studied painting at art school, the majority of my output over the past 15 years or so has been in the field of collage. I have always been a collector of paper memorabilia and made the odd collage, but now it is the mainstay of my creative practice, and it has developed in many different directions. It has enabled me to both mirror, and cathartically express, the emotional consequences of several migrations, emotional upheaval as well as cultural loss and gain.