Graphite on stitched baking parchment 2018
Exhibited in Only Human at 44AD for FAB18
Solo exhibition, Body of Work, at The Art Cohort 2020
In life we are bombarded with imagery, including the current trend to generate copious self-images, few of which go unfiltered except when they are being scandalized as exposés on how people have “let themselves go”. This obsession with editing a virtual version of ourselves is not only affecting the mental well-being of individuals but changing the self-perceptions of society and how people interact.
Hanging Out makes an overt statement to celebrate the beauty of reality with eight super-real portraits of women in the flesh. Women with freckles, wrinkles, asymmetry, bulgy bits, scars and the stories of their lives mapped out on their wonderful bodies. Each body is drawn from life onto a paper copy of a favourite item of clothing, selected by each woman for making them feel comfortable in themselves, so instead of the clothing covering them up it acts as the canvas for their portrait, revealing the inside on the outside.
More and more people are body phobic as reality does not match with the filtered virtual world projected all around us and we feel most vulnerable when naked. Hanging Out speaks on multiple levels working with such delicate and fragile materials contrasting with almost brazenly real imagery of the human form asking us to consider where our misperceptions are.
The (1 in 8) sub-theme in Hanging Out makes reference to the power of data reporting on health and the impact this also has on mental health. The work is dedicated to the memory of my inspiring friend, Eve White, who encouraged me to return to professional arts practice to celebrate what we have and can do and who is missed as considerably more than an absent statistic.