About Me
In the 1990s I studied English at the University of Oxford, where I won the Violet Vaughan Morgan Prize, and later gained a First in Script Writing at the Oxford University Creative Writing Summer School.
My photographic work has been exhibited widely and recognised internationally. In 2009 I was a Section Winner in Digital Camera Photographer of the Year — at that time the world’s largest photography competition, with more than 20,000 entries. This helped lead to shows in Melbourne and distinctive galleries in the UK.
I am also the author of From the Marches to the Sea, a dual-language book of words and images exploring Mid-Wales, from border to coast.
After many years in the Cotswolds, I now live in the Welsh Marches, inspired by my Japonaiserie garden Where the Whale Talks to the Stars. From my studio there, I continue to write and produce digital imagery, and to collaborate with other artists.
There are two other honours I should mention. One is that, aged eight, I was awarded a Silver Blue Peter badge — an achievement impossible to surpass. (Well, they’re hardly going to give me a gold one, are they?)
In 2009 I was awarded the Silver Atenier Medal by Technische Universität Darmstadt for my contribution to educational philanthropy worldwide. It recognised leadership in professional development, public speaking, media work, education and training that helped more than half a million people give to education for the first time.
I suppose I’ve spent 100 per cent of my life chasing meaning and at least 200 per cent trying to remember where I left it. Maybe it’s with my maths book?
Or maybe it’s fallen down the back of the sofa? That’s where everything else ends up. Down the back of the sofa — a metaphor for life?
Stuffed behind the cushions… peeking out at Doctor Who, just the same.
My Writing
When I write fiction I use satire to show the cracks, and myth to reveal the power of humanity to dream.
Through this, the reader is permitted to dream too. That dream, and what we make of it, is life itself. Despite our never-ending folly, that dream is always precious.
It is what it is to be human — with (and until sans) everything.
In my poetry, the ephemeral resonates with significance. I invite readers to look at the smallest details of life and the meanings we lay on the discarded: trivial things, transitory places, fleeting memories: Harshly, things without value or meaning, humanely, that in which we seek out the significance our lives.
My Photography
In photography, I am an enchanter of images.
What I mean by that, and how my images fit into my philosophy — and the thinkers and artists above — should not precede their viewing. The visual must be allowed to speak as it does for every infant, before words: Otherwise, there is no enchantment.
Each image begins as a photograph, a record of what I saw and thought I saw, then melted and reformed until the viewer can find what they see. Suffice to say, I invite the viewer to rope up with the artist in the meaning-filled act of seeking significance.
My Garden
I am also a garden alchemist.
My garden invites visitors on a similar journey, but with a different resonance.
The rock is hard physicality; the plants grow by their own mechanisms.
Yet they are placed and pruned — arranged to invite many pareidolic encounters at both macro and micro scale.
My garden invites not one dream but many — each a reflection of the dreamer.
My Library
My Library of Questions where you can find out more about my ideas, articles, extracts, guides and work in progress.
I hope you enjoy exploring the website and my ideas