Work

I have been working on a commission over the last two years for Imagineer Productions on the Godiva Awakes project. 

Commissioned through Artists Taking the Lead, Godiva Awakes is an exciting project forming part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. and funded by the Arts Council England. Imagineer's Godiva Awakes is one of 12 commissions that will be realised across the UK prior to the Olympics, each inspired by their location and celebrating the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

I was commissioned to work as part of a team  of artists from the region led by

 Julia O'Connell - who did an amazing job of leading a team of artists to create a coat for Godiva, chronicling the West Midland's unique industrial, engineering and craft heritage.

Following a period of research about a particular regional industry or craft tradition, the team of artists reflected their findings of the research visually in elements of the coat.

The Coat team are all fab individual artists and you can find out more about them on their own sites:
Maggie Dunne – Maggie has researched the glove making industry from Worcester and has been responsible for the collar, cuffs and buttons on the coat.

Rachel Grant – Rachel has researched the pottery heritage in Stoke and her personal connections to it. She has worked on 2 of the coat’s 5 metre panels.

Adam Hussain – Adam is making Godiva’s cufflinks and researched Smethwick and Stourbridge glass making.

Debbie Squires – Debbie has focussed her research on the Black Country chainmaking and nail forging industries and has also embellished 2 of the panels. 

Julia O'Connell  As well as designing the coat, Julia has focussed her artwork on the lining of the coat. She has stitched over 7000 tailors tacks and used white screenprinted images from her research of the artists and makers working on the whole Godiva Awakes project. The tacks signify the number of participants and artists on the project.

Below are some pics that track the Godiva coats progress from the early days until now…The coat was revealed to the public on Saturday 28th July in Coventry Cathedral and presented to Godiva on Sunday 29th July in Broadgate where she was dressed by her tailors and greeted her public in all her glory before taking part in Coventry Carnival before making her journey to London.

I researched the computer gaming industry, a particularly important sector for the region. A quarter of those employed in the UK games industry are located in the West Midlands, which benefits from a steady stream of games design and software development graduates from five major universities.

I documented the journey of Philip and Andrew Oliver who from humble beginnings designing computer games in their bedroom back in the eighties as schoolboy coders to creating Blitz Games Studios which has grown into one of the most stable and respected development studios in the world. Currently boasting six distinct divisions, the company has come a long way from its roots as a well known developer of family games. Today, the different Blitz divisions are working on mature titles, serious games, downloadable   and short-session games and their middleware and game engine, Blitz Tech. Looking back to their own roots, Blitz has also pioneered the Blitz 1Up initiative, which aims to help budding indie developers find their way to market. In addition to this diversified portfolio of interests, Blitz are heavily involved in working with education and government for the long term benefit of the UK games development industry.