Title: 'To be British'

Year: 2024

Media: Hand embossed / debossed Lino print on paper, with crushed glass, charcoal, builders' dust

Size: 76 x 58 cm

About the work: Increasingly navigating the legacy of the United Kingdom's Imperial past and its effects on the present, I find my own middle-class, white, male, British heritage often difficult to square.

In this piece, the letters of the word 'proud' are not proud, instead recessed beyond the plane of the paper, and not referenced in the title. The remaining words - which reflect the condition I ponder on - instead protrude, and are painted with the materials of buildings (I am an architect so this is my palette) that are crushed and burnt to remind me of the horrendous loss of life, often signified by destroyed homes and hospitals, in Gaza.