Artist Statement

 

As an artist, I have always been drawn to recreating figurative representations of the people and world around me. Either be it through photography, videography or painting, all three are intrinsic to my creative process and allow me a different insight into the way we behave. Humanistic relationships never cease to hold my attention, such as exploring moments of dependency, intimacy and sensitivity to those we love and even those we hate. My main interest lies in portraying how these sensations stem from a contemporary standpoint, specifically our ubiquitous and ambivalent relationship to technology and how this dynamic creates conflict amongst us daily. As a society, we have reached a threshold moment with technology, where we are unable to find ourselves turning back and continuing life without it, and this in turn has affected and our relationships with the people around us. For me, being able to comprehend this happens through making, and creating visual conflicts to push others to question what stands before them.  

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Currently my work focuses on the power and potential of female relationships, whether they be sexual or platonic, and how technology acts to undermines them. As a young woman, the relationships I establish with my female friends are some of the most valuable and rewarding, and I wanted to explore this, but also the complex narratives that female relationships can entail. For women living in a patriarchal capitalist society, female bonds are an incredibly crucial aspect of survival against modern-day society due to their uncompromising ability to provide nurture, safety, comfort, intimacy and love, and I believe it is important to ask ourselves what happens when these alliances are tested.

 

Photography has recently come to the forefront of my practice, as I have been heavily influenced by film's such as Spring Breakers and Paris Texas and their systematic and heavily saturated use of colour, exploring how this creates a psychological impact on the viewer. I have also been researching historical and universal depictions of vulnerability and devotion, referencing religious imagery such as La Pieta by Michelangelo, and historical depictions of female intimacy in painting like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's brothel series. I have been attempting to reflect this from a female perspective through photography, videography and painting, recreating similar poses with women I love by asking them to recline and lie in each other's arms. But to create visual discrepancy, I ask them to use their mobile phones to represent a disruption and detachment from their moment of compassion. There is an undeniable closeness, yet they fail to fully engage with each other.

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