My paintings embrace the need to create contradictions within the work. Beneath a serene and feminine surface, there are layers of tension that invite the audience to dig deeper. These paradoxes mirror my innermost beliefs, providing me with a platform in which I depict the human form, exploring the boundaries of figurative painting. The physicality of oil paint, the traditional way of communicating allows me to find a visual language through it, reconstructing the pictorial ways of communicating the female body.

Diagnosed post-virally with chronic fatigue syndrome at aged fifteen, I battled asthenia and when I was put on bed rest I taught myself to paint. My body became an object to prod and to poke, my flesh revealed and contorted my inner anguish.

My research directly impacts my work. By using photographs from library archives, popular media images and my own personal photographs, I intend to exploit tensions between the past and present to create a dialectical interplay between narratives around gender.

Re-drawing a women’s place in history, exposing gender suppression, my practise aims to create a balance between representing women and the darker undercurrent of a women’s experience in the western canon, to invite a meaningful conversation about women’s rights.