Statement
Following from my PhD investigating representations of mothers and mothering, I remain interested in the ways artists explore experiences that may otherwise be considered unrepresentable, incommensurable, beneath and within the banality of the everyday. Again and again artists trace the mysterious contours of our inner worlds, going beyond the interiority of the domestic and its powerful creative potential to look further inward to dreams, and to map universes of the imagination.
French theorist Julia Kristeva called this bubbling up of deep creative potential the semiotic. In observing its impact upon avant-garde art Kristeva also argued that the tone of this expression is feminine. Whilst not peculiar to women, the gendering of the semiotic was intended I think to show how women’s creative potential has been denigrated and overlooked throughout western art history, as avant-garde invention has been cast as masculine.
During the Summer Residency period at FeltSpace I conducted an investigation into my own inner world, tapping into the surreal potential of the semiotic. In my investigations into mothering I formed the opinion that the everyday is not that far from dreaming after all. The walls between worlds are porous. This work has broader ramifications as I consider women artists’ historically overlooked potential and the generative creativity of feminine experience.
The gallery space at Felt allowed a move into new, more performative territories as I fashioned a version of my dream-world in the real world using cross-disciplinary processes including textile, garment construction, movement and meditation practices, drawing and painting. I am excited by the idea of making this seemingly intensely personal work in a gallery-studio with street frontage; a room of one’s own with a window to the city street.
Following from my PhD investigating representations of mothers and mothering, I remain interested in the ways artists explore experiences that may otherwise be considered unrepresentable, incommensurable, beneath and within the banality of the everyday. Again and again artists trace the mysterious contours of our inner worlds, going beyond the interiority of the domestic and its powerful creative potential to look further inward to dreams, and to map universes of the imagination.
French theorist Julia Kristeva called this bubbling up of deep creative potential the semiotic. In observing its impact upon avant-garde art Kristeva also argued that the tone of this expression is feminine. Whilst not peculiar to women, the gendering of the semiotic was intended I think to show how women’s creative potential has been denigrated and overlooked throughout western art history, as avant-garde invention has been cast as masculine.
During the Summer Residency period at FeltSpace I conducted an investigation into my own inner world, tapping into the surreal potential of the semiotic. In my investigations into mothering I formed the opinion that the everyday is not that far from dreaming after all. The walls between worlds are porous. This work has broader ramifications as I consider women artists’ historically overlooked potential and the generative creativity of feminine experience.
The gallery space at Felt allowed a move into new, more performative territories as I fashioned a version of my dream-world in the real world using cross-disciplinary processes including textile, garment construction, movement and meditation practices, drawing and painting. I am excited by the idea of making this seemingly intensely personal work in a gallery-studio with street frontage; a room of one’s own with a window to the city street.