Dl Ed

I make paintings about Britain, because apparently I haven't suffered enough.

My work takes the people, symbols and visual clutter of British life — monarchs, politicians, national icons, history, flags, stamps, coins and the occasional traffic cone — and gives them a slight shove sideways.

I’m interested in the strange gap between how Britain likes to imagine itself and the Britain that actually exists. My paintings mix historical imagery with humour, pop culture and deliberately familiar visual language to explore ideas around British identity, class, nostalgia, power and national mythology.

Sometimes the joke is obvious. Sometimes it takes a moment. And occasionally I put a national hero in his pants.

I studied History and Philosophy of Art, but I’m less interested in making paintings that look like they belong in an academic lecture and more interested in making work that makes people stop, look twice and think, “Hang on… is he allowed to do that?”

My practice is rooted in painting, but I like to experiment with materials and imagery — from oil and acrylic to coins, collage, spray paint and found visual language. I’m particularly drawn to the tension between the respectable and the ridiculous: the grand historical portrait...