Latest Artist Statement

Socio-cultural concerns about femininity and feminism, about the body, about individual control and consumption within a consumer society - the inspiration for the creation of my work. My work is a way of exorcising something from myself, which is very emotional, maybe troubled. I become a subject who produces that which is visible. It is my silent, non-verbal response.

The artwork plays on traditional sculptural concerns, the process of adding or taking away. However, this is not only achieved using stone or wood but adding chocolate, soap, latex, wax, degradable or even edible materials, underlining the transient state of the body. I believe food is the medium through which we, particularly women are addressed and, in turn; food can become the language of women's response. Obsessive and routine acts of measuring, producing and perfecting envelopes both my creative process and the disciplined quest for an unattainable bodily perfection. Meanwhile, the works degrade as does the body.

The final artworks attempt to present the seductive yet simultaneously repellent nature of human anatomy embodying ways of externalising a very internalised self-analysis of the body personal. The juxtaposition of hard against soft, of sensual against skeletal, of void against object, this is my visual language of a struggle within and of a body.

Freedom to create

It all seems to be making a lot more sense to me. The urgent need to create being fulfilled at present with the freedom, time and space to make work as and when I want/need to. I no longer have to time the making of work around other things, in fact I time everything else around making work now. It is giving me the chance to really explore creating work and I am constantly finding ways of visualising how I feel.

I am using materials I find around my here in Cyprus which include cactus spikes and leather and I am collecting everything that is dead and no longer considered beautiful.

In an attempt to create something beautifully appalling to reflect the fragility of life, our inevitable fate trying to question the importance of surface image, beauty and youth when all around and we are dying. This control over our image, our bodies, our politicised vessels keeps us from making changes that would make the world right.

And yet all I do is continue making work about it, is that enough? Will this make changes? Aren't I simply posing questions rather than offering answers? Like this blog, questions. I don't have the answer so the work reflects a/my situation and asks of you to change it or to simply think about it.

Latest artwork

My body is caught up in the symmetrical battle on these canvases. Please take away that mirror, reflection line, that Golden Section, perfection, I will never be. We are not perfect, nor beautiful, we are here, that's enough. We imperfect everything; taking, eating, spoiling, devouring, consuming, ruining and yet we think we have the right to.

I want to make beautiful images with an ugly undertone, aesthetically pleasing but appalling. The figures featured are alone even in groups, bound to the weight of the perfection quest. I try to ruin the canvases with stains of food colouring with no control over application or result.

I feel less alone in a foreign country, I am liberated like a child lost in translation. I feel close to people I can say only one word to and receive a nod of the head from...'Man dies after confronting youth who threw half eaten chocolate bar into sister's car'...the internet keeps me up to date with events in England. Too many people crammed in to such a small space keeping their heads down, eyes off each other - through fear?

Is it all connected? If we continue putting too much emphasis on the superficial, the surface, are we widening the gap between our inner self and that of others. 'I' is not the surface, it's beneath that, it's in 'here'.We are creating a gulf between me and you... I fear you, you fear me, we don't communicate. I am certain this is the route of many awful things. Many wonderful things too but the awful things surely could be addressed. It's that reminder that's needed - we are all intrinsically the same, one, vessel, being - there are too many things used to separate us.

Repetition, reflection, the inside of the body or where the body has been - this will fuel the next pieces of work - the space inside, the void within rather than the visible surface. Relating to travelling too, traces of the body, where we/ I have been using stuff/ landscape around me to create husk/ positive form/ shell/ cage/ constriction. Travelling/ wondering reminds me I am not permanent, to constantly move, see, smell, experience - to not settle. Photographing these works with me in them but then left as husks...'Knives are being used in crimes every 8 minutes, 175 per day which is double that of 2 years ago'...I am on the outside looking in.