The theme of my work centres on human relationships with our environment and surroundings, in particular the ways in which we try and control these things. This control manifests itself in many different ways, but one aspect, which has been most fascinating for me, is the notion of possession. I question why it is we feel the need to surround ourselves with material possessions, and what drives us to amass objects throughout our lives. As I see it by gathering, collecting and owning objects, we feel able to dominate them - by taking them out of their original contexts, and imposing our own personal meaning on them. The fact that for the most part objects are smaller than ourselves also contributes to this feeling of or ability to dominate. We are drawn to the miniature because we know it as a spatial whole - we are able to control it and it offers us security. On the other hand we know the gigantic only partially – it is threatening and unknown, and as a result we try to shrink it down to put it on our terms. In this way miniature objects enable us to feel omnipotent. My work focuses on this relationship we have to the material world, and attempts to deconstruct it in some way. I present representations of ‘possessed’ objects alongside images of their original contexts. In each case a piece of the original context is visibly missing – with the aim of drawing attention to the act of removal, and desire for manipulation and possession. There is a particular emphasis on the miniature. This is perhaps most evident in the miniaturised landscapes, and the large ship series, where images of ships in bottles are portrayed - the ultimate manifestation of human control.