Zemni Illustration

I am a photographer, artist and writer based in Cambridge, UK.

Image-making is my way of living, experiencing life and discovering new ways of looking at the world around me. Some of my work is political. Some emotionally dark. Other more ‘human’ work aims to help myself and others laugh and ‘look on the bright side of life’.

 I work in a range of media. The basis is generally photography or sketching and painting from life in natural media or on my iPad. These images may then be collaged as the narrative basis for further development in different drawing, painting or printmaking media, digital software or animation. Some of my work is more experimental and abstract, exploring the range of intentional and accidental effects that can be achieved in different media, then adapting these and pushing the range of styles I can produce in other very different media. I am also interested in different forms of narrative. Some of my images are brought together as books, on-line experiences or moving image.

Much of my work has been around journeys and social and political issues in Africa and Asia connected to my professional work as consultant with international development agencies. My current work increasingly focuses on issues nearer to home – the social and environmental challenges we face in Europe and my own responsibilities within that. Alongside my own artistic practice I hope to support processes for international collaborative art, photography, video and web communications as part of peoples’ own documentation of their lives, building on participatory methodologies I used overseas.