The 1986 accident at the Chernobyl power plant in the Ukraine was the worst nuclear accident in history, resulting in a massive release of radioactivity into the environment following a power excursion which destroyed the reactor core.

Home is shelter and sanctuary, an emotional retreat. However, this most powerful place of safety and comfort cannot protect us from nuclear radiation, which can penetrate our protective shield. Human instinct becomes irrelavent in the face of such destruction. There is no escape, no hiding, and no safe place for your family as ignorance is no protection.

A single nuclear weapon with a small yield is significantly more powerful than the largest conventional bomb and is capable of destroying an entire city. Even peaceful use of nuclear power poses huge risks to mankind and the earth.

Food products grown at the time of the Chernobyl disaster, like mushrooms and strawberries, were imbued with radioactive elements, causing a huge increase in thyroid cancer in the surrounding areas.

Chernobyl is an example of the true destructive reaches of nuclear energy and my work is intended as a warning to treat this technology with great caution, so that we can never forget its potentially disastrous consequences. Repetition of images such as the mushroom cloud desensitizes us to its true implications. The only escape from desolation is to prevent a nuclear hollocaust from happening in the first place.

I was previously interested in the sinister undercurrents of human relationships, looking specifically at aspects such as fear and anxiety. Generally, children's fearful emotions, such as the "monster under the bed", are purely psychological and the result of an overactive imagination. This invented fear becomes a memory preserved by powerful emotions and it allows a particular imprint to be etched onto our lives.