How was art important to you growing up?

Weirdly or maybe not, visual art was not important to me at all when I was growing up. I was always an avid reader and was always interested in music and fashion. I had a very over active imagination and most of my time I felt like I was trying to protect myself from my own thoughts and fears. In secondary school I went to art class once didn’t like it and I honestly don’t remember going back. I was almost completely unaware of most painters until my early twenties apart from Louis Wain who my Mum had up all over the house (not originals). My house burnt down when I was 10 and afterwards my Mum commissioned an artist to do two paintings, one of the house intact with ominous clouds all around it and one of the house in ruins. I suppose those paintings taught me a lot about the power of images. I think I isolated myself a lot when I was little and that taught me how to see. When I saw saw “The Scream”’ by Edvard Munch it made me feel almost happy because I knew some one knew how I’d felt when I was younger.

What motivates and inspires you?

Sunlight is so important to me, it always inspires me because it illuminates everything and makes everything so radiant. I’m always inspired by books and music. I don’t really like spending time in galleries or museums, I always feel kind of led by them, like the building is trying to tell me how and why the work should be appreciated, writing it down it sounds kind of childish but it’s something I can’t change.

What does neuro diversity mean to you?

I think without neuro diversity the world would be a very boring place. The world needs people with different points of view and ways of seeing and feeling. Also they tend to be mavericks because they don’t see all the limiting rules that govern society, they see paths that others don’t.

Does it affect you and/or your family’s life? And if so, how?

My brother has recently been diagnosed with autism and adhd, he ended up in the priory with a drinking problem which they said was his way of self medicating in order to fit in when he didn’t feel comfortable. From taking to my brother about it we both realised that my Dad was almost certainly autistic. From reading so much about it when my brother was diagnosed I would bet my life that I have adhd.

What are you working on at the moment.

I don’t really do projects but I do do themes that I add to as I’m going along, I started on a new theme a few years ago which I’m carrying on with. I used to get really frustrated when I saw a location and imagined how much better it might be with a person or a hint of a person in the shot. This got me thinking and I went back to a lot of studio work I’d done in the past and printed them life-size onto fabric and cut out the shapes. It started as a whole person but I realised that it would look much weirder if for instance you just had a pair of legs, or a hand in the shot. So now when I go on a photo trip I now have a bag full of printed fabric legs, hands etc and another bag of all the different ways I’ve discovered to stick them on walls, windows, billboards. The other thing I love about this process is that I’m shooting photos containing elements of other photos I’ve shot. I really like that idea and it’s something I’ve been playing around with in different ways for a while now.

What would you like your artistic legacy to be?

I think I’d be happy just to have a legacy....