Born in Northern Ireland, I am a fine artist specialising in crochet sculpture. I combine realism and freestyle crochet skills to create realistic life-size and sometimes larger than life, animal sculpture. I coined the name Crochetdermy to describe my work, and in 2008 I registered the trademark. The ability to hyperfocus is fundamental, it can take many months and sometimes, as with The Lionheart Project, years to create each piece. Career highlights include a ‘Very Very Unofficial Portrait’ of Prince Harry created for Guardian Weekend magazine, Bojo, a sculpture of Boris Johnson as life-size albino gorilla for Chelsea Flower Show, and collaborating with the British Council on their ‘Great’ campaign. I have been privileged to travel the world with Crochetdermy®, exhibiting at many prestigious galleries/museums including The V&A, Natural History Museum and Saatchi Gallery.

 

Large scale public art includes inner city installation 33 Cank Street, and The Lionheart Project. The Lionheart Project was the biggest single handed crochet sculpture in the world and reached an audience of over one million people. Part of the Cultural Olympiad and created to celebrate the London 2012 Olympic Games, The Lionheart Project consisted of three 25ft hand crocheted lions housed in a bespoke mobile glass case which toured the country throughout 2012.

 

My work occasionally leads me in unexpected directions. In 2020 I was contacted by a specialist in forensic medicine enquiring if I could create a prop to aid expert witness court testimony during sexual assault cases. The prop was well received and its success led to a further project with New South Wales Ministry of Health.

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