"Cloak of Leaves", 2024, Leaves and thread A public installation at Maidenhead Thicket – a tapestry made from fallen leaves from the local woods.
An ephemeral piece - reusing fallen leaves and giving them new life and purpose in a familiar environment in an unfamiliar way.
"A Silent Song", 2024, Textile and thread. An exploration of emotions kept unspoken, unseen and silent. These hands, demurely crossed, are a mask or a shield which hides the turmoil.
I chose to create a soft sculpture (the innate prejudice of textiles and embroidery as a "feminine craft”) as a perfect vehicle to try and convey this idea of women who feel the weight to conform to expectations - symbolised in these well-behaved hands that hide a silent song that haunts us all.
" The Story-Line - Remembered Journeys" 2024, Glassine paper and thread This is a piece about maps that reveal not destination but memory; personal memories of significant places, daily walks and distances travelled. It is presented as a narrative mapping of these importantjourneys that have become embedded in my life-story. These are not maps of geographical accuracy or recognisable places, rather they are maps made of feeling, experiences and reminiscence.
I was drawn to thread and sewing as a medium because the action of stitching: one stitch following another, felt like a mirror of the repeated steps taken on these daily journeys that have become potent memories in my life. The white thread tracing the routes travelled by plane, car, train and on foot while the coloured threads showing places travelled frequently or places important to me. Loose threads hang as a reminder that these journeys are still ongoing or have to potential to lead elsewhere.
The viewer is invited to approach this piece like a map to be carefully and gently unfolded. In its folded state – the viewer can see through the layers of the translucent glassine paper- it provides a complex and possibly chaotic, unreadable image, much like the mind when trying to grasp a long-forgotten memory. The unfolding of the map allows the viewer to contemplate the maps from either side, like a malleable memory we can approach from different directions in our attempt to see something new. Each sheet is held together with thread stitched into the fragile paper – pointing to the ephemeral nature of memory.
The inclusion of the loose threads means that every interaction with the map will lead to different patterns being formed depending on where they lie when they are handled; it is a reminder that memory, no matter how vivid, is imperfect and these maps like memory will present differently each time they are unfolded and looked at.
"By Invitation only - the Vagina Dentata, 2025. This work is inspired by the “monstrous female” and in particular is focused on a folktale present in multiple cultures from all over the world about the vagina dentata (toothed vagina). They are stories about women who usually have a demon, fish or evil spirt with teeth in their intimate area who castrate men who try to get it on with these women.
These are not pleasant stories - they are fuelled by a fear of women’s sexuality or this idea that a woman must be tamed/broken through sexual violence.
In this piece l created a mobile where I interrogate the idea of stories we tell children that colour the way they see and interact with the world and also explore the reclamation of female power -where this story as a cautionary tale might be remade into one of female autonomy and choice.
