“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable” Cezar A. Cruz

Needlework is an intense process where every action is a conscious response to materiality, and a way of managing internal disquiet and rage.  Each stitch is measured in thought.  Collectively the stitches become a meditative process. My work reflects the complexity of my identity interacting with circumstances beyond my control. I use heritage textiles passed down from my maternal grandmother and great-grandmother, and the beneficence of strangers.

Our inhumanity towards one another overwhelms me; genocide and the Holocaust in particular as they are part of my heritage.  Racism, fascism, anti-semitism, domestic abuse and gender non-conformity are issues that affect me directly and inform my work.

The peripatetic nature of life led to creating work on a small-scale – work such as “ce n’est pas un cerveau”, an algorithmic crochet piece made on public transport journeys from a ball of string that belonged to my Grandmother, and eventually exhibited in “Substance” at the Mannerheim Gallery, Paris (2017). The visual narrative of my work plays with various Embroidery techniques and stylistic notions, and defies pigeon-holing.

I am the recipient of an Arts Council England grant to develop my creative practice and an Ambassador for OutsideIn.  I was awarded the OutsideIn and Arts Society South Downs Dr. Andrew Edney bursary in 2020 to continue studies in traditional needlework techniques at the Royal School of Needlework.  My work was selected for the Hastings Open 2020 at the Hastings Museum and Art Gallery.