Sappho’s Hipbone and other Stories

Conversations with Walls

For some time my artistic focus has been on exploring the unique expressive potential of thread. I use a range of mixed media drawing practices including freehand machine embroidery and hand stitching to create my artworks. With a sculpture background that has focused on construction methods favouring found objects with welded steel, plaster and concrete I have recently been expanding my material experiments to include installation and wall drawing whilst exploring themes relating to the female body in relation to structures of social control.

Sappho’s Hipbone is a labyrinthine sculptural wall drawing consisting of multiple interwoven elements - textile, wire, thread, plaster, wool, found objects and created objects - that interact with each other and the wall/other built structures. My work explores the historicity of societal power dynamics as they relate to the body through bringing found and created objects into conversation with with each other and with the built structure combining textile, medical and construction materials with found and made objects.

My aim in this work is to brings disparate fragments into conversation with each other and with the built structure of the wall as a way of exploring personal experience and feminist themes. I use a process based approach combining the materials and methods of textile traditions, medical applications and building construction. Through feminist theory and queer theory lenses and taking the Ancient Greek poet Sappho as a guide I am creating installations that explore a range of themes, connecting throughout history and in the present time. I examine the interwoven contexts and forces at play in the production of knowledge, with a focus on how this impacts bodies and why this matters. I have recently been focused on the writings and ideas of transdiciplinary feminist philosopher Donna Haraway. The work is site specific, adapting and evolving in every iteration according to the evolution of my ideas and to its environment. Some elements so far include fragments of poetry by 6thC BCE Greek poet Sappho and freehand machine embroidered anatomical drawings.