Arts Council Bid

I contain multitudes, I am a multidisciplinary artist shifting my practice to different media according to the media that best suits my psychological state and the inspiration. I understand that trauma has caused me to use my work to circumnavigate life experiences. It provides me with a way of moving close to complex areas and move away again safely. The work evidences my process and the existence of a range of ways of being. One piece of work cannot stand alone as a representation of me as an artist for as Matt Licata might suggest, I am far too various and mysterious for that.

Studying Richard Swartz who wrote, No Bad Parts and developed a therapeutic philosophy called internal family systems or IFS, I came to recognise all the work as partially or wholly aspects or parts of myself. I move from media to media to keep both the work and myself safe.

โ€˜Les Saltimbanquesโ€™ was a pivotal collection of figures that seemed to speak as one piece. It was validating to have it acknowledged and exhibited at Turner Contemporary in 2021. All the outcast parts of self were invited in. I hope those who saw the exhibit enjoyed it.

This awareness thanks to Covid and the opportunity to study trauma in-depth, has given me a renewed understanding of work that I knew was rooted in my unconscious, but I hadnโ€™t quite realised its protective function. I thought my work was a way of speaking my truth, perhaps it does in part,  but it is also a way of staying protected from truth, a kind of dissociation from reality.

A common theme in my work is the very brittle nature of the psyche. I recall a psychiatrist making an assessment of me when I had post-natal depression and declaring, โ€˜Brittleโ€™ as she slammed the file shut. Yes, I am Brittle. It gives me an insight into the vulnerability of others, it makes me a sentient, aware woman able to empathise and respond intuitively through my work and in person.  I can shatter and working in series is a way to gather myself.

Through engaging with this work I invite the viewer to value and respect your own brittle selves with compassion and curiosity. One thing I have learned is it serves no one to try to ban and exile parts of ourselves that we do not like. Better to get even closer to them all the better to see them and know them.

Artworks

Also available to download as PDF

Les Saltimbanques 2019
35 x60 x 60 cm
A tribe of figures representing parts of the Artistโ€™s psyche, the unwanted, the strange, a tribe of outsiders. Selected for the OPEN exhibition at Turner Contemporary Margate 2021-22.
Collage & Cut outs in books and Zines, a project started in 2022 as a personal visual Journal.
Basket case, Self-Portrait self, aggression and mental health, 2001
Shown within a Cabinet of Curiosities, Whitstable Biennale Fringe 2016.
1:6 Beast, 2020
Painted engravings in series exploring the ferocity of female desire.
The Hand of God, 2016
10 x 20 x 10 cm
Textile piece made as a piece of floral armour, a protective shield, featured in book โ€˜Unravelling Womenโ€™s Artโ€™ by PL Henderson (2021)
Be still, 2017
58 x 67 cm
An embroidered textile piece exploring the ferocity and fear around female desire.
Bone tree, 2021
110 x 35cm
A symbolic sculpture marking a period of grief.
The Body I am in, 2021
Embroidered response to the Drawing Correspondence Programme on Body Shame
Lump, 2020
7 x 8 x 4cm
Miniature Porcelain figure referring to self-image and body dysmorphia.
Bunker Girl, 2019
26 x 15 x 8cm
Earthenware women symbolising the primitive fear of dread.
Gasp, 2018
17 x 17cm
A porcelain piece referring to the shock of trauma.
All we need
19 x 17 cm
Porcelain piece about despair.
Soothing Spoons, 2016
Textile piece made for Handful of Dust Exhibition, PieFactory, Margate
Flag, 2018
184 x 80cm
A symbolic piece used in performance to mark triumph over denigration.
Act of devotion, 2019
Porcelain plates 1.8 x 3m from the โ€˜acts of devotionโ€™ series. Shortlisted for the Mother Prize
Unravelling Women’s Art, 2022
Described as a significant contributor
to, by editor PL Henderson.
Publica Privatas, 2017
Stoneware two-part ceramic sculpture
36 x 22 x 23cm
Winner of the Medway Bridge Association Heritage Competition The Halpern Gallery, Chatham, Kent
Lonesome, 2019
36 x 11 x 8cm
An earthenware and textile figure of a brittle man.
Contraction film, 2022
1 minute Screened Bath Fringe Festival 44AD Gallery Bath 2020
Tom Thumb Theatre Femme Film POW Thanet Festival 2022.
Also โ€˜Tootsโ€™ featured in Portrait Theatre production of Womenโ€™s experiences of Lock down 2020 โ€˜Give, Take< women Space.โ€™
https://peisley.art/contraction-film/
Toots, 2022
35 X 15 x 18 cm
Stoneware sculpture.
Fred doubts, 2022
42 x 59cm
Graphite drawing of an apes mask conveying compassion.

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