My practice explores relationships between the female body, Christian religion and institutional power. This is an autobiographical project which draws on my experience of growing up in the Catholic Church. My sculptural and print based material explorations critique the transfer of power between institutional religious spaces and the domestic. I put forward my own female corporeality in defiance, expressed through material explorations, installation and printmaking. Feminist writings by Elizabeth Grosz and Judith Butler are used to dissect, understand and defy the influence of institutional and social power on the female body. My expanded printmaking processes explore the concepts of trace, absence and index using mono printing, lino carving, casting, tracing and embossing techniques. I also engage with Katheryn Reeve’s concept of the matrix as womb and an extension of the female body. Scars, stretch marks and skin are identifiable in the surfaces and allow the works to be easily anthropomorphised. The centrality of encounter is present in relationships between the human body, materiality and architecture. My work reclaims a softness, a focus on the material body and presents the female body as a site of contemplation and devotion.

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Heirophanies, 2021

MDF, beeswax, candlewax, latex, vintage lace, chain  

1200 x 1600 x 600 mm

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Heirophanies, 2021

MDF, beeswax, candlewax, latex, vintage lace, chain  

1200 x 1600 x 600 mm

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Untitled, 2021

olive oil, latex, vintage lace, acrylic on paper, LED lights  

2500 x 1800 mm

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Body embossings, 2021

lino embossing on etching paper  

1000 x 650 mm

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Body prints, 2021  

relief print and latex on paper  

2000 x 4200 mm

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