ARTIST STATEMENT 

My practice is focused on material lead narrative work, spanning the personal and the political, expressing resistance via disruption. I work with clay and words.  The works are anchored in artefacts (chosen for their geo-political and material narratives) that are treated with an irreverent nostalgia: manipulated and distorted to convey the stress of barely holding it together in the face of imminent destruction. I work with a clear correlation between material and theme; the red clay echos the landscape of my childhood in a direct expression of ‘place’, while porcelain’s ‘there-not-there’ quality is used to express that being between two places, means never really belonging anywhere. I use organics and minerals to influence the clay’s structure and qualities. The inclusions are used as agitators, instigators and disruptors. I am adjusting the clay from within, using material research as a philosophical idea. These physical and chemical interruptions embed signs of making and use within the objects, creating a future archaeology, an historical document of my own state of mind. At a time when women are still being silenced, I use my voice to write words that are obscured and redacted, their prohibition encouraging the viewer to pay greater attention to what is not being said.The works centre around the idea of of disruption, distorting traditional ‘correct’ working methods: they are made and remade, broken and mended. They evolve until they reach a point of stability in both concept and matter. They retain a fragility; the scars are both the weak points and the binding.