Through the feedback loop of womanhood, this work reflects on feminine disquiet and investigates how self-staging and the feminine form are entangled with voyeurism and abjectification. The work exist in a space of irony, surrealism and sexuality.
My practice is concerned with the feminine experience and Kristeva’s theory of abjection, and further psychology, and has developed visual language that bridges distorted-into-motif confessions of women with the idea that the feminine body has become a palimpsest on which many of our culture’s conflicting messages about femininity are written and rewritten.
The process of felting shed animal fibres – wool fleece and dog fur – notes the abject, and is sustainability centred, embracing serendipity. In its wildish embodiment, the work posits both victimhood and the absurdness our exaggerated notions of perfection. Regardless, modern femininity requires a degree of exhibitionism, or at least willingness display oneself as decorative object; here is Dolores.
Dolores Ipsum, felted wool fleece and dog fur, 227 x 114cm
Dolores Ipsum, felted wool fleece and dog fur, 227 x 114cm (detail)
Dolores Ipsum, felted wool fleece and dog fur with butcher's block, 227 x 114 cm (installation view)
Dolores Ipsum, felted wool fleece and dog fur, 227 x 114cm
Research
Research
Research
Needle-felted motif research sample
Needle-felting process