My Journey

I was born in Hamilton in 1966 and grew up between Inverkeithing, Culross, and Bo’ness — places shaped by landscape, industry, history, and a strong sense of identity. Those early surroundings quietly formed the foundations of how I see the world and continue to influence my work today.

After leaving school, I trained as a picture framer in Edinburgh. It was there that I first felt connected to the living world of art and culture, and where I had the privilege of meeting Richard Demarco and Joseph Beuys. Both left a lasting impression on me, shaping the way I think about creativity, cultural identity, and artistic independence.

Along the way, I spent short periods working with Gleneagles Hotel and Alfred Dunhill, experiences that introduced me to different disciplines of craftsmanship, presentation, and professionalism. My journey eventually led me beyond Scotland to Germany, where I studied German at Ruhr University Bochum and began expanding my understanding of what an artistic life could become across cultures and borders.

In the mid-1990s, through pure chance, I met Christo and Jeanne-Claude in a pub. That encounter changed the course of my life. I went on to work with them as a monitor and team leader during the wrapping of the Reichstag Building in 1995. Witnessing that project unfold — temporary, monumental, and politically charged — gave me the confidence to fully commit to my own artistic practice. That decision has shaped the last three decades of my life and work.

Since then, working primarily from Düsseldorf, my work has taken me around the world through exhibitions and collaborations with the Kulturamt in North Rhine-Westphalia, alongside projects in Singapore, Tokyo, New York City, London, and beyond. Photography, painting, sculpture, and experimental mixed-media processes have become part of one continuous conversation in my work — a way of responding to place, memory, movement, and history.

Now, that journey brings me back to America. In 2026, I hope to return to Washington, D.C. to exhibit there and travel throughout the United States, continuing a transatlantic story that connects Scotland’s past with its present. This project is not a departure from my earlier work, but a continuation of it — gathering a lifetime of travel, experience, and artistic exploration into a single evolving narrative.