We all have to deal with mess. We find it in our environment, in our hoomes and in our heads. This mess drives my art practice: in my sculpture and assemblages I integrate life’s detritus.
I work with fragments of previous work and old sketches, cloths used for mopping up in the studio, old threads and wire, tree prunings. I draw on domestic processes, including weaving, stitching, darning, binding, repairing and dyeing: the supposely “low” arts or crafts usually associated with women. Mine is a tireless process of making, tearing apart and re-making, a creative process deliberately visible in the final work.
Inspired by natural forms, my sculptures call to mind nests, vessels, nets and cages, and cast shadows on the surrounding space. As literal and metaphorial containers of mess, they relate to my studies in art therapy and the concept of the “holding environment”: the nurturing space created for a patient by the therapist.
Recently I have been dwelling on motherhood, memory and legacy. Using discarded electric wires and packaging materials which I cover with my mother’s old stained dusters and cloths, I am creating larger scale sculptures that invite viewers to enter into them and to explore and modify them.
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