I am a mixed-media, investigative artist with a particular focus on artists’ books. My practice explores contemporary issues spanning ecology, technology, and their intersections. It is shaped by an awareness of how deeply embedded technology has become in everyday life, and the cultural, social, environmental and economic implications of this entanglement.
My work draws on a range of influences, including 17th century still life painting, 20th century Abstract Expressionism and contemporary post-digital art. I am particularly interested in collaborative relationships between artist and technology, including the creative potential of machine learning.
Encoded, my most recent project, extends this inquiry. A black stepper box unfurls in stages, revealing eight lotus-fold books. Four are held with red belly bands: the human codes: genetic sequences, recipes, instructions passed hand to hand. Four in blue bands: machinic codes; QR matrices, Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) generated outputs, languages written for and by systems. Together they map a continuum. Code as inheritance. Code as instruction. Code as translation. Code as something that writes us, even as we write it.
I recently exhibited I Am River as part of the Liverpool Books Arts exhibition at Liverpool John Moore’s University Library.
The book is a celebration of humankind’s intimate relationship with water inspired by Lewes District Council’s decision to accord the River Ouse a Rights of the River Charter in 2024. Javier Heraud’s poem, ‘The River’ (1960) was a powerful source of inspiration, manifesting the flowing concertina book. I wanted a form that could flex and give the sense of the flowing river at the same time as having reasonable scale. This perspective informed an approach to bookmaking that resists linear, human-centred storytelling.
Instagram: @dawnl_sketchbook/
Website: https://infinitecuriosity.studio/