RESILIENCE takes on mythological, historical and contemporary stories of survival and its aftermath, drawing specifically on feminist theory and reappraisals of female iconography. Source materials include historical fables of three sisters such as Macbeth‘s three fates, and individual wild women mythologies from across the globe and throughout history. Right up to today’s Princess Mononoke from Japan’s Studio Ghibli. 

The paintings act as doorways or chapters within a sequence of obscure storytelling. My method is to research stories and symbolic visuals, yet leave them “at the door” of the studio. I then endeavour to evoke the spirit of these characters and their struggle for continuity through a pre-determined process based on different methods of paint layering.

Works on paper are pre-scored with a knife as a way of acknowledging and activating the paper as a participant in the work. Slices and cuts give reference to skin, to cutting, to injury and self harm. Though it’s incredibly important to me that something else comes of their existence beyond the dumbness (the inability to speak) of injury. The focus here is on the Greek mythology of Medusa and her winged siblings Euryale and Stheno. Each piece describes a different story in the womens’ lives as they retreat into hiding and find delight in a landscape of sisterhood that triumphs over trauma.