Installation of 'mAkE' Sketchbook at Stryx Gallery, Birmingham
for 'Viable' Exhibition 2022
@weareviable
In 2019, I hit a creative block. Though I had recently made a successful body of work that I was enthusiastic about, and had plans to continue developing further over the following year, what happened instead was months of stress, frustration, and desperate attempts to kickstart my practice again as I tried to just make work. The result was an abandoned development plan, and a new but failing project. My one saving grace was my sketchbook - specifically the way I approached making my sketchbooks, and subsequently my work.
This body of work is an ongoing investigation into the creative process, and how exactly thoughts and ideas develop into a fully realised work of art. This is conducted via a combination of research, process art and documentation, showing particular interest in the ideas of the ‘unfinished’, in contrast to a ‘finished’ work of art; as well as in the wellbeing of artists, and how far health and wellbeing impacts the creative process. By engaging with these themes, I hope to contribute to the discourse surrounding the ‘finished’ and ‘unfinished’, and encourage the audience to further engage with their own sense of creativity.