There is something about body horror that has always entranced me. Everything that oozes, and squelches, and rots, and bleeds. It seems to unlock such a raw, visceral reaction in people, and whether that is good or bad I’m just proud to make people feel something in the current epidemic of apathy.
Wrestling with self harm, eating disorders, grief, queerness, sexual assault, gender dysphoria, abuse or anything else in that vein, gives you a new perspective on your own body and those around you. Afterall, it is simply a vessel, but representing physical harm to a body is one of the few ways to communicate the kind of deep-rooted wounds it can leave, both to vindicate those who have felt it and to illustrate it to those who haven’t. It feels like a reclamation; to use flesh as a medium; to be able to manipulate it and shape it however you like after having that bodily autonomy taken away from you.
My work, and my depictions of my own body, explore what it’s like to grow up a girl, even when you turn out not to be one – to get breasts suddenly during your most depressed and turbulent teen years, to be abused and groomed and fucked and assaulted and cut and choked but you’re not even sure whether you liked it or whether you hated it – and that need for validation from the male gaze becoming so intertwined with your own self image that the idea of not being fuckable terrifies you, even years later after the realisation that you’re not even attracted to men.
For me, painting explicit, gory, bloody, mutilated and violated bodies (almost always my own) feels cathartic. My work attempts to put these feelings, the twisting knotted masses, out into the world in a visual format. Art is a therapy for me and the medium I use to process the things I’m not able to fully articulate; whether that is living paycheck to paycheck and scrambling to stay afloat; the nuances of BDSM and its ties to self harm; hereditary trauma and its manifestations or trying your very best to heal and grow despite it all. My work showcases my mental ebbs and flows, unpacking years of trauma and attempting to process and reflect on it all in my own imperfect way.
My work is raw. It is messy and disgusting and bloody and horny and sobbing on minimum wage and sexy and repulsive. It is for me and it is not for men. It is for the people who don’t need an explanation but they know the feeling. It is for you.