Swollen

The painfully taut bulge of Swollen brings to mind the functionally distended parts of the reproductive body in its 'bodyhood.' It is at once a dark and imposing crevasse, and a hopeful, heaving mass, created by manually stretching taut pieces of aged, archival leather skins whilst also piercing and saddle-stitching the pieces by hand to the raw linen. The months of physical labour, and the monotony of hidden-stitches required to make these alluring, yet painfully bulged forms underscored the immense toil, objectification, and othering of the reproductive body that is often hidden behind a deceptively unassuming, outward appeal.

As a mother to young children making work whilst simultaneously dealing with the impossible demands of our pandemic, the 'hidden labour' of these sleek works are particularly poignant. The abstracted shapes embody the physicality of body parts that are required to retain worth and beauty whilst also being able to swell, tear, bear, please and morph beyond clear 'human' recognition as part of its supposed purpose.

As dehumanised 'parts of a whole', the work questions the presence of the human body as an object, and in such isolated forms, the works consider what the absence of body might mean.