About
A r t i s t S t a t e m e n t
I navigate an interdisciplinary creative practice of object-making, drawing and performance with an exploration of personal mythology, female perfectionism, self-care and the invention of daily routine. Revelling in the historical expectation of function, my ceramic objects serve new, invented purpose, providing utility for new ceremonies of the everyday. With a medium that further positions me within the domestic, I have begun to explore the potential dichotomy of the space. There is a remedial impulse present in the comforts of domestic routine, easily echoed by the threat of capture and imprisonment. The house as both protector and captor. As a woman I currently sit in the void between marriage and motherhood. An uneasy realm of social expectation, selfish desires and an impatient body. Ceramics has traditionally performed a role of comfort, soothing anxieties with a hot bath or a warm tea. My current body of work exemplifies this comfort and yet exaggerates and distorts it as seen in my collection of scream catchers, trapped fears and well wishers - all of which are ceramic forms used to harvest, store or transport the ethereal medium of emotions. A gesture to tangibly handle the seemingly unmanageably excretion of emotion and allow them to become a power source rather then a diaphanous villain.
Working with a studio practice that balances the ephemeral notions of performance and the accumulation of ceramics I began to study the gestural behaviour around precious objects. I began noticing how identities altered, postures changed when precious objects were held. As a response I began to define the characters that would engage with my work as a form of contextualization. I began to search for female archetypes, heroines and wear these identities like found objects — the readymade identity draped across my shoulders. These heroine, readymade identities embody my relationship with a cultivated, romanticized standard of female perfection. Accelerated by societal expectations and a desperation to make use of time and ability, guided by my ten year long diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis, I explore the desire and obsession for accomplishment and my own particular definition of perfection. In a world of social media posts we are constantly inventing ourselves, choreographing our life and often manipulating our audience. Likewise, performance allows me to explore the illusion of authenticity, the facets of an identity, the power of mimicry and the endurance to perpetuate a fictionalization of self.