artist statement
The relationship between art and environment is central to my interdisciplinary art practice. I am motivated by a desire to better understand this relationship through embodied, immersive, investigative explorations of space and place. My work is highly-site specific and informed by my multidisciplinary background in environmental, human, and urban geography. My present work is concerned with the lasting environmental impacts of industrial activities, particularly mining and other forms of extraction.
Aesthetic walking practices and digital photography are common points of departure in my work as an artist-researcher. Walking allows for bodily attunement and playful explorations of sites. Photography is how I begin to understand and distill the complexities of the environments and subjects I study. Photography is the first stage of my image-making practice, which also includes drawing, illustration, painting, and printmaking.
Through these varied processes of image-making, I hope to provoke and inspire new ways of looking at and understanding the natural and built world around us and the various ways we change it.
artistic activity
As an interdisciplinary artist and researcher, it can be challenging to separate artistic output from research in a way that makes sense from the outside. They are entangled and inseparable in my work. This is a constant negotiation as I move between arts-based research and research-based art. I am learning slowly, occasionally painfully, to be more comfortable in these liminal, in-between spaces.
I do not have a traditional arts education and instead work independently to develop my art practice and establish myself more formally as an artist through participation in artist residencies, engaging in collaborations with other artists and arts institutions, exhibiting my work, and of course making art. My creative focus at present is illustration and printmaking.
Remnants of pyrite processing waste and other industrial debris at the Companhia União Fabril (CUF) industrial park in Barreiro, Portugal (2025)
artist residencies
I have participated in two artist residencies in 2025, which have been transformative experiences. I started the year as an artist in residence at Velferden in Sokndal on the west coast of Norway. I spent five weeks working at and exploring the Titania AS ilmenite ore mines at Sandbekk. Following this, I spent over four weeks as the first artist in the new Research Residency program at PADA Studios in Barreiro, Portugal. There I spent time exploring the decontaminated areas of the Companhia União Fabril (CUF) industrial park. I am still working with the materials from these residencies and with time hope to share some more reflections and output here.
As an artist with a background in geography, the site-specific aspects of artist residencies are extremely inspiring and something I hope to continue with as I develop my artistic practice.
Sketching the Companhia União Fabril (CUF) industrial park in Barreiro, Portugal (2025)
artistic output
As an artist-researcher, the output from my artistic activities is varied. While working full-time as an academic researcher, my artistic output primarily took its form within academic research publications. Several of these publications explicitly discuss the use of artistic and aesthetic practices in research. In particular, I have published on the potential of more artistic approaches to photography within social scientific research. The focus of my research is consistently art-oriented and I have written on artistic activism, graffiti, and street art. I have given a high number of public talks in Norway and abroad on various topics relating to this artistic research and I have organised a number of arts events including seminars, talks, and workshops. I am increasingly participating in exhibitions and developing new works for show.
Series of climate activism photography on display at Tou Scene during the Wonderful World Festival, Stavanger, Norway (2025)
Rubble in the Companhia União Fabril (CUF) industrial park in Barreiro, Portugal (2025)