Biography

My name is Tori and I am 22. I am currently living in London working part time in retail, spending the rest of my week devoting all my time to painting.

I first lived in East Stoke as a child and spent a lot of time outdoors, this is where I would keep my mind busy creating and playing sports. My family then decided to move somewhere even further out and we moved to a seaside town called Swanage.

Here I fell in love with the sea, this is where me and my friends would spend a lot of our time. That isn’t speaking for the winter as that time of year became desolate as most people would understand who have lived in a small town.

I have lots of happy memories from this time as it was the first place I experienced my teenage years. As you can imagine this is where I started exploring myself. Unfortunately, I also have some of my saddest memories from this time as this is also where I lost my dad. When I was studying my GCSEs he fell very ill and was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. This was a very hard time for me and I found it incredibly hard to stay motivated and balance my home life alongside school.

He passed away before my 16th birthday and this still remains a sad time of the year for me and my family. Through this time I struggled to talk to anyone, and this is a time I spent communicating my feelings through my art. Even though, if I’m being honest I wasn’t producing loads of work, the art that I made helped me to cope.

I then obtained my A-levels at Purbeck sixth form where I studied history, sociology and of course art. Which allowed me to get into Solent University where I got a 2:1 in Fine Art. Here I unfortunately didn’t connect with the space that was offered to us within my course. However, this meant that I had to put in more effort to make a comfortable space at my house. I managed to use the living room opposite my room, and turned it into my own little studio. I spent a lot of time on my own painting in my house. Even though I felt lonely at times, this is where I made the most progress with my painting. I started painting on large bits of fabriana paper. This Meant for the first time I had no restrictions of how large I could paint. I become obsessed with painting and haven’t stopped since. This is where I explored artists who inspired the work in my final year, such as Lucian Freud, Louise Bourgeois and David Hopper.

Since leaving university I have moved to London and I am continuing to paint and develop my style and creativity. For the first time I am looking to make my art into a business and sell my work professionally.