My Fine Art BA was largely disrupted and destroyed by the COVID-19 pandemic, but it centred on my gender transition being a symbolic and physical metamorphic process.
The unseen and internalised nature of gender, emotionality, and vital processes being hidden and slowly growing. It is both beautiful and strange.
My research included ritualism, the gendered history of craft, contemporary texile artists, craftivism, abjection, and the uncanny. Also a lot of feminist and/or queer intersectional writing on gender, both social, political, and personal.
It culminated in The Human Chrysalis Project, in which I made uncanny soft-sculpture vessels evocative of skin chrysalises, each representing different aspects of myself.
During the degree show, Self-Portrait (Adult) [left] had a pulse and breathed. Self-Portrait (Child) [middle] was weighted; a chunk of rough rose quartz inside it. Suicide [right] laid silent and still.
All of the sculptures were hand-stitched, the guts knitted, the mattress beaded by hand.
SPECIMENS, 2022
I included the babies that were initially experimental practice runs for the larger pieces, some weighted, some with plastic inside for sound, the largest one had a heartbeat. Halfway through the show, I put out my sketchbooks to introduce context whilst I was absent to be able to do so.
Here are some sketchbook insights for your viewing pleasure:
Other works from the BA include my frog rug series (on the Textiles page), and these:
Vessel, Hanging Soft Sculpture made from foam and linen, 2022
Untitled, Acrylic on A1 canvas, 2019
Seeping, Beadwork on cotton, 2022
Emergence, A real Privet Hawk-moth chrysalis and wool, 2022