I currently live in London working on personal and commissioned projects. However, my family has lived and farmed in Jersey for generations, so a relationship to landscape, space and experience is embedded in my psychology. This rural upbringing influenced my photographic sensibility.

Grey. Seagulls. Wine.

Yes. Whilst at school, my attraction to photography emerged naturally as a reference point for my ceramic sculpture. We had access to darkrooms and my first photography mentor, Sue Macpherson, was really supportive and helped develop my curiosity. I wanted to pursue its practice and concepts further, which led to studying photography at university.

I am drawn to the friction between our interior and exterior worlds, as well as photography’s power to represent existential ideas. I am most concerned with portraying photography as an active medium.

I’ve always been fascinated by Japan. The culture, artistry and environment are continually intriguing. For my recent project, Aomori, I travelled to Japan’s ancestral forests. Aomori, meaning 'blue forest' in Japanese, is a synthesis of two existential ideas: the forest and the nature of blue. Through my research, it became evident to me that Japan had strong metaphysical potential and was an ideal site to make work.

Before travelling to Japan, I was very interested in producing a monochromatic series. Specifically, I was captivated by the colour blue. For the author Rebecca Solnit, the colour blue embodies distances we can never quite arrive in. The colour blue – formed through fluctuating atmospheric conditions – creates for her, and many others, a great immaterial and metaphorical plane. However, it took time to combine my conceptual understanding of a colour with a subject that complemented my philosophy.

Experimentally, I sourced blue glass from a church window, which was then cut to size to fit the filter holder of my camera. I wished to truly introduce this colour into my process by exposing my analogue film directly to the blue world. Glass, which is normally a material of separation, is employed directly in my process to unite both medium and idea. These photographs bring Solnit’s blue of distance near, into the world of the forest; they are by process, forever blue.

Previously, in my Aurelian series, I explored atmospheric conditions such as humidity, alongside tropical flora and fauna enclosed in Victorian butterfly houses. These artificial spaces are metaphors for a contained, continuous experience. I am fascinated by the material and psychological effects of organics, climate and geography. This process finds its roots in the 1960s Land Art movement. In Aomori, I expanded these metaphysical territories to the ancestral forests of Japan. Here, the presence of the forest – and the density of its nature – appears to halt the relentless progression of time.

Thank you. My Aomori exhibition was a result of winning the Free Range Award 2017 and sourcing further funding through ArtHouse Jersey and Arts Council England. It took an immense amount of time and effort to create something that I am truly proud of.

I believe the creative process is a very difficult enigma to define. My projects definitely have an autobiographical impetus, which helps guide my taste and interests. Ultimately, I try to be always receptive and really understand why I’m making a photograph.

Conceptually, my work is underpinned by ideas of materiality, as a result of the photograph (negative) interacting at the same time and space as my subject. I can only make my work because of the nature of film. I don’t disregard artists who choose to work with digital technology, or those who comment on a socio-political climate. That work is extremely important. However, for my work and interests, film is a medium, not a technology.

Recently, I’ve just completed a creative commission for The Greatest Magazine. I was provided with an ambiguous brief, plenty of pages and complete freedom to interpret the theme however I desired. That’s a fantastic project. To be genuine, I can’t force work, it needs time.

When I look at someone’s work, I need to not only experience the idea presented but also, I need to experience them. A photograph is not just a document of the place but of the author. I find you are the most interesting variable within the photograph. You need to show confidently that your interests are important. Furthermore, you need to learn how successful artists have approached your subject; learn how they have interpreted, adapted and disseminated their familiar to someone unfamiliar.