As a sixth-generation Pākehā (Irish Gaelic, Ulster Scots, English), I’m guided by both the traditions of my European settler ancestry and the decolonising lens through which I try to live. I hold these tensions consciously, while working towards more relational ways of being.

My studio practice is inextricably entwined with my everyday life. It exists in response to, persistently, in protest. It shape-shifts and waits around corners—often emerging quietly, shaped by cycles of care, activation, and transformation. Working with participatory and socially engaged frameworks, I map a search for belonging and interconnectedness across time, place, and community.

Becoming a mother has pushed me to the edges of selfhood. As a maker, I’ve found a new material language here—one that asks to be reimagined, repurposed, and rehoused. My work often begins with small, intimate acts: sharing a cup of tea or tending a garden. These gestures become both mark making and meaning making, tracing the materiality and form of relationships that bind people, places, and stories together. I’m drawn to the residue of labour in textiles—the way cloth holds memory, body, and land. Stains, tears, and worn threads become maps of care. I unravel, over-dye and rework fabric not only for its material potential, but to uncover the narratives and histories embedded in its warp and weft. 

I’m interested in exploring the key role the artist has as creative facilitator in bringing together participants in social change projects that empower and lead to lasting change in care. Facilitating social relations and treating wellbeing with the same value as an art object. My projects centre collaboration, often with those in caregiving roles or on the margins of traditional arts participation.