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In 2010 I completed an extra mural course in Book Binding at the University of the West of England, Bristol. These classes in making books triggered a remarkable and totally new direction in my work.

I have had a long and successful career as a fine art printmaker and had never thought of myself as a 'three dimensional' maker. However in the past twelve months I have made over twenty objects which are overtly 'books' and contain ink drawings, inkjet and screen prints but also open and fold into sculpture forms. Essentially I am applying for this award so that I might continue to explore and develop this exciting new departure. I need more and better equipment, as well as materials, to do so. Specifically I will require a larger Nipping Press and a vertical plough or a guillotine. At present I am quite restricted in the size of the books I can make as the press I have is very small. I also do all cutting by hand which doesn't quite give me the professional finish I would like. It would also be important to upgrade my digital equipment, in particular my camera as it cannot deliver quality of image on a larger scale. (I have attached price lists which give an indication of the cost of these items.)

I have always been intrigued by conflict, juxtaposition, tension and ambiguities in the human disposition. In my earlier work, I created paradoxical and ambiguous visual narratives in drawings, etchings and screenprints. These narratives were concerned with the complexity of establishing an identity for the self and its struggle with ontological insecurities. Over time this interest in ambiguity and contradiction extended to the form itself and I began to juxtapose disparate visual elements such as the photographic with the hand drawn as well as the word with the image; different visual languages as it were, that attempt to 'pin down' reality for us. The perceptual and formal elements in the work therefore echoed or embodied the physiological ones.

My desire has always been to embrace this range of graphic resources and technologies, from the digital to the hand made, to have them co-exist, albeit in an anxious tension, within the same work and I have discovered the format of the book provides the ideal framework for me and gives a context to my poetics. A book can be a repository of knowledge or tell a story to shape and influence us. It has a physical, tactile, even sculptural presence. A book can be 'read' on many different levels simultaneously, as well as its story or narrative, it can also create metaphorical possibilities from the interacting resonance of word, image and physical form.