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In creating a woodblock print, the challenge to think about the image in the negative has intrigued me from the start. A mark cut in the wood, when printed, is a white shape in a dark ground. The question becomes, should this mark function as positive shape, a background or both? This suggests that thinking "in woodblock" is an aspect of the creative process that involves seeing and creating an image from another point of view. In addition, much of my work has not only been concerned with a subject, but is engaged with what the printing technology of woodblock may suggest metaphorically. My work has followed several overlapping strands since the 1980's ...

The matrix of a woodblock print is the low relief carved surface which receives the ink and from which the image is then printed using pressure. 'Matrix' is also the word derived from the Greek for womb, giving the purpose of the block, to produce prints, and its eventual fate, to be discarded, a certain appeal as a feminist metaphor. In a number of works I have used the block together with its prints as a sculptural element in installations.

An interest in Jung led to working with objects or images which are related to culture or history. During the eleven years I lived in Japan, a series of works dealing with objects made of rice straw were a personal means of exploring of that culture.

My formal, abstract work constitutes occasional departure from idea-oriented work, and allows technical and aesthetic concerns to be foremost. The grid series were originally inspired by a configuration of frosted windows through which only blurred colour and light could be seen. These water-based, woodblock prints enable me to work with elements of colour and value.

A natural process related to making a woodblock print is the "proofing" process: the taking of prints throughout the stages of carving the block until the printmaker arrives at the desired image. In these works I preserve both these "state proofs" and the matrix to evoke a metaphor of the inexorability of time's passage.