You are a multi talented genius with a strong personal signature in your work. I feel that creativity is part of your DNA and that you create constantly, just as naturally as you breathe. How did this journey begin? Do you remember yourself as a child creating nonstop, tell us about your life story.
I was definitely a very creative child, always drawing and making things. I have really vivid memories of my parents, grandparents and aunts all helping me with my projects. A painted cardboard bridge the size of my grandparents’ dining table sticks in my mind! I loved art club at school, and at college I studied fine art, graphic design, photography, English literature and German.
I moved to London when I turned eighteen and enrolled at Central Saint Martins, where I did menswear fashion design. Throughout my time at college and university, I was constantly working on little projects here and there, from producing my own fanzine (with help from my friends; my Dad printed it for me), to making stage outfits for my favourite musician, Patrick Wolf.
What would you consider the main highlights of your career, what are you proud for?
I have loved showing with The Breeder these past few years – the support I have from the gallery is wonderful. Other highlights include my interior design projects, starting my own clothing brand, and writing a column for FT Weekend.
What was the first thing you created and how far is it from your today’s work?
Well, it was not the first thing I created, but the other day I was sorting through boxes of old stuff that had been kept in storage at my parents’ house, and I came across the fanzine I used to make as a teenager (mentioned above). There are threads present in the look of this zine that have carried through, and are still apparent in the work I make today. There is a bold approach to colour, and a very DIY, collage-like aesthetic.
What makes your art so exceptional and stand out? What unique qualities define it?
A hard question for me, personally, to answer! I think, as an artist, all one can hope is that the work they produce is an authentic expression. For me, what I love about my art practice is that it’s a completely pure expression. Whilst I love working on design projects and collaborations, my art is free from briefs and boundaries – it’s unchecked.
Your connection with Greece feels very strong, and you keep returning here as an artist. Tell us about the recent exhibition at The Breeder and what inspired this latest body of work.
In Dancing with Serpents, I am extending my exploration of storytelling through drawings and paintings that draw on folklore from West Penwith in Cornwall, the region I am moving to this year. Piskies, giants, and mermaids – alongside recurring mythological figures such as Pan, Antinous, and Dionysus. Rather than illustrating specific tales, the works trace affinities between these traditions, allowing them to coexist and transform one another. Across the exhibition, I propose a shared imaginative space where mythologies overlap and evolve.
Drawing on a longstanding fascination with antiquity alongside Northern European folklore and the Arthurian cycle, the body of legends surrounding King Arthur and his court, I am bringing together disparate narrative traditions into a shared, timeless space. Mythical and legendary figures are not fixed but continually reinterpreted, appearing as emotionally resonant presences rather than distant archetypes. Through this lens, I am softening inherited narratives, revealing moments of vulnerability, sensuality, and quiet introspection. My protagonists are often male figures drawn from myth, imbued with a lyrical ambiguity that challenges traditional depictions of heroism, allowing tenderness and desire to surface.
The works in this exhibition take cues from landscapes both remembered and imagined: coastal horizons, open fields, and shifting pastoral scenes. These environments function less as settings than as emotional terrains, sites of encounter and transformation. Colour plays a central role; applied intuitively, it destabilises naturalism and instead heightens atmosphere and sensation. Figures emerge and dissolve within these chromatic fields, their bodies porous and responsive to the world around them.
You are also participating in the Biennale of Contemporary Keramics in Rhodes with The Breeder. How do you feel about this experience, and what stories lie behind your ceramics?
I used to make ceramic pieces years ago, but a potter would make them for me, and I’d decorate them. Earlier this year I started making my own pieces from scratch, which I have really loved doing. It’s been a very rewarding experiment. I’m so happy to be taking part in the Biennale on Rhodes.
The theme for the exhibition is the sun, and I wanted to run with this in a mythological direction, as I so often do. Continuing with my exploration of Celtic myths and legends, I dedicated the plates to Lugh, the Irish and Celtic god of sun and light.
It seems that you have a great sense of taste, beauty, flowers, everything that makes life beautiful. And you create magic in many ways. What really do you like doing the most?
Painting and drawing is at the heart of all of my projects: I draw every single day, and I have done since I was a child. I do find, though, that I love working on many different kinds of projects, from designing prints for clothing to illustrating books. And then, of course, there are the everyday things: cooking, arranging the flowers I grow in my garden…
I need to view the universe around me and the work I make – paintings, drawings, clothing, interiors – through the same lens. I have a sensitive approach, but I’m also in love with colour, pattern, ornamentation and decoration. I am driven by the need to tell stories, to weave together stories… When I say that I am a Romantic, really I reckon it’s about mythologising the world around me, about revelling in my imagination and my emotions, and also having a deep love and appreciation of (plus a connection to) nature.
What do you keep in your heart from Greece?
The sea and the warm smell of jasmine.
What goals are you pursuing now?
I’ve been trying to meditate, which I’m finding tough because my brain is always a chaotic jumble of thoughts.
Your philosophy for life
It’s sort of a cliché but I think it’s so important to find enjoyment every single day, even (and particularly, probably) in the small stuff.
A dream project
I’d love to design a country house hotel by the sea in England, and I’d love to work on some interior design projects and murals in Greece.
When you enter a room what draws your attention first?
The lighting – I hate bad lighting.
The designers and the artists you adore
So many… From the past – Duncan Grant, John Craxton, John Minton, Cecil Beaton, Oliver Messel…
An exhibition you will never forget
I loved the Craxton exhibition at the Benaki which took place a few years ago.
The best bit of advice you ever received and the one you gave
To keep one’s blinkers on. As in horse blinkers. You have to focus on your own development, and not to worry too much about the noise around you.
The most emblematic design piece of all times
Impossible to say! I like old things.
Your motto
Remember to be a palm tree and sway in the wind. Basically: try not to get stressed.
Your favourite work of art
Impossible to choose. I’d love a Bronzino at home.
Favourite guilty pleasure?
I don’t have them!
What’s on your reading list?
Right now I’m reading William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love by Philip Hoare.
In another life you would have been
A gardener perhaps, or a cheesemaker.
Any recent discovery?
I stayed on Hydra for a few days after my show opening in Athens. I loved exploring the Hydra Book Club, which has just opened on the port. An incredible selection of new, vintage and rare books.
What are three places you return to time after time and why
Cornwall for the magic, the sea and the people, Rome for the food and the architecture, the Swiss alps for the feeling of calm I find in the mountains.
At your dream dinner party you’d invite…
My friends, and loads of dogs.
Your definition of beauty
It’s really personal. The things I find beautiful usually have a strangeness about them – strange colour combinations, foreboding sea mists, weird flowers.
What is authentic for you?
Living to the beat of one’s own drum…
