We All Have Weird Roots is a series of surreal still lifes that reveal the hidden lives of houseplants. In each painting, the pot becomes an x-ray window, exposing the tangled, often overlooked structures beneath the surface.
While foliage is what draws our attention, I’m most fascinated by what lies beneath the soil: thick rhizomes, delicate tendrils, sprawling root networks. These hidden structures mirror our own lives. We present a carefully curated exterior to the world, while beneath it our emotions are tangled, messy and beautifully complex.
Behind the Collection: The Story That Inspired These Works
In 2023, a medical misdiagnosis left me functionally blind for eight months. Unsure how to move through the world without my sight, I spent most of my time indoors and filled my flat with houseplants. When I could finally see again, I repotted my leafy companions and became fascinated by their roots..
I realized my experience had been just like theirs. Their foliage is the first thing anyone notices. Because I looked the same as I always had, no one realized I couldn’t see. They saw a composed exterior, while inside I was a mass of conflicting emotions.
That realization became the foundation of We All Have Weird Roots, a series about resilience, transformation, and the unseen emotions that shape us.
🎨 Gouache on paper, sizes vary (see each piece)
🌱 An ongoing series, with new works added regularly
📩 Enquire for pricing, availability, and commissions
Harvest the Minis is a series of miniature gouache paintings, each just four inches square. A companion to We All Have Weird Roots, they use the same x-ray pots to reveal the tangled root systems hidden beneath the soil, distilled to an intimate scale.
These pieces are made for close looking. They invite you to pause, lean in, and discover the detail in every tendril and rhizome. Hung together on a gallery wall or tucked into a favorite corner, each one is a small, complete world.
🎨 Gouache on paper, sizes vary (see each piece)
🌱 An ongoing series, with new works added regularly
📩 Enquire for pricing, availability, and commissions
Animals let me explore ideas that no other subject can. A face, a habit or a strange adaptation can carry an emotion, a lesson or a question about where we’re headed, often all at once.
That idea has taken my work in many directions, from the overlooked creatures and life lessons of Unusual Animal Messages to the paintings collected here. Many began as commissions or studies, but animals are what I return to again and again, especially the strange, overlooked and misunderstood ones.
Sometimes a painting is really about me, and sometimes I’m trying to understand something outside myself entirely. Either way, I never run out of inspiration.
Since 2011, I’ve hand-painted more than 3,600 companion animal portraits for clients around the world. Working from photographs, I let each animal’s personality guide the painting, using line, colour and composition to bring their character forward.
This body of work reflects my ongoing interest in portraiture and the emotional bonds we form with the animals we share our lives with.
🎨 Gouache on paper. No AI tools.
📅 2011–present
📩 A limited number of portrait commissions are available each year. Enquire for details.
My Favorite Toy explores the quiet intimacy and humor of dogs with their most cherished objects: soft toys, well-worn balls, or, in some cases, humble pieces of trash transformed by unbridled affection. Each painting examines the unique bond between animal and object, capturing not only the dog’s personality but also the emotion ascribed to their possession.
My Favorite Toy invites viewers to reflect on the nature of attachment, joy, and how even the simplest items can become imbued with meaning.
Animals (With Problems) explores human projections of insecurity and difference through portraits of animals grappling with their own perceived flaws. Humor and anthropomorphism become entry points for considering how normalcy and beauty are defined in the natural world, and, by extension, in ourselves.
In one painting, a tiger grows self-conscious about her white coat, wanting to blend in with the orange of her peers. In another, a cheetah runs so fast his spots fall off behind him, the ultimate price for always being in a rush.
Each animal's insecurity speaks to a universal desire for belonging, resonating with experiences of racial difference, physical variance, and self-consciousness across species. By centering these insecurities in animals, the series invites viewers to examine their own.
