Dark History (Basement Steps)

Empty domestic interiors are a recurring motif in my work, with their layering of stories and memories assuming a haunting tangibility when those spaces are empty of inhabitants. 

This drawing is from a series depicting a family home in Bristol built, in the 18th century, by a sea merchant who made his living from his involvement in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Having borne witness to three hundred years of domestic narrative, its walls invoke presences and traces, not just of past inhabitants, but of those upon whose suffering the house was built.