My work draws on my childhood in Kenya and migrating to England in my early teens. My fascination with exploring how people and plants are in interconnected exchanges is the overarching theme in my artist practice – reflected in my botanical linocut prints and large 3D paper plant installations. These works all stem from my body of work exploring urban garden plants in Kenya and England, developing into ongoing studies of plants and people and their place – as parallel narratives between migration, naturalisation and belonging.
The projects I have worked on to date continue to influence my practice and thought process, impacting how I develop on my ideas and progress my practice. Concepts behind my installations have provoked questions about plant and human movement, stemming from my lived experience of migration. These works have made questions of our “categories” and thinking about them makes the world look different – which have personal and ancestral links. It is colour that I am deeply exploring as a vein that originates from my overarching theme of movement. My current research is in exploring colour history through plants. “Empire of Plants” is a long term visual research-led project which dissects the complex legacy of trade routes during colonial expansion, particularly focussing on plants used for colour and pigments extracted from countries linked to global trade during the mid-1800’s.
Colour is a large emphasis in my practice. It is a way for me to visually convey my emotional responses to being immersed in landscape / plants, to highlight the interconnected cyclical exchange which feeds my being. Colour and light play are the basis of my observations expressed through sketch, paint and print studies – organically informing my work by evolving into experimental textural and painterly combined printmaking techniques such as linocut, collagraph and introducing encaustic wax monoprinting.
Working in collaboration with artists’ and organisations through making, conversation and research fuels my desire to bring meaning to my work in tune with a more in-depth, slow-working, considered approach.
About me
I am a Kenyan born Indian-British artist printmaker living in Leicester working with linocut. I have a degree in Fine Art from DeMontfort University and am a member of the Leicester Print Workshop. In addition to my printmaking practice, I share my printmaking and creative book arts courses and workshops teaching at arts organisations and museums, and collaborate with artists’ on creative socially-engaged projects. I regularly exhibit my work nationally.
Recent work
2025 – The National Forest – Artist commission in partnership with Charnwood Geopark and Charnwood Arts and Richard Hill CofE Primary School children. Together we re-created the Rector’s Garden from 1694 accounts records through three dimensional paper forms.
2025 – Seed Stories – Artist commission with Leicester Cathedral. A suspended large-scale three dimensional paper installation which interprets the story of a Roman settlement discovered from the closely located archaeological dig, created together with young people from Focus Charity.
2024 – Plants and Play – Artist commission awarded by ArtReach in partnership with Leicester Cathedral as part of ArtReach’s Journeys Festival International 2024. Plants and Play was an immersive, interactive installation that highlighted the importance of play for our wellbeing, using the fun and familiar element of a garden swing set inside the stunning Leicester Cathedral. Featured on BBC Breakfast, BBC East Midlands and BBC Radio Leicester.
2023 – 2024 – Plants & Place – Artist commission with Creative Leicestershire’s Animating Leicestershire Towns project, exploring flourishing and/or loss of front gardens and its wider impact on the natural environment, humans wellbeing and sense of community.
2023 – Major artist commission by Leicester Museums and Galleries (LMAG) through their NPO funding. ‘Steam & Seeds’ are a triptych of linocuts depicting the interconnected cyclical exchange of wastewater management told through the lens of plants. The original linocuts are part of the LMAG permanent collection.
2022 -2023 – Creative socially-engaged projects commissioned by ArtReach for their annual festival with people from sanctuary seeking backgrounds; plus other community arts workshops and projects.
I have exhibited since 2019. Key exhibitions & awards include:
Leicester Society of Artists 2023 (Prize winner)
Sock Gallery 2022 & 2019 (Highly Commended & Runner Up)
Society of Women Artists Exhibition 2021
Teeside Print Prize 2020 (Commended)
Circle Foundation for the Arts Kenya 2020 (Honourable Mention)
Member of:
Mandeep Dhadialla | ARTIST printmaker 