I am an art educator and artist specialising in textiles. I create art based on topics that are important to me, for example, social issues, environmental issues and historical themes. I hope to create conversation and awareness for these issues, in a more thorough way. My work is very process and sample heavy, I do a lot of experimentation, with materials, techniques and outcomes. I aspire for my work to not only raise awareness for these issues but to spark conversation. This body of work is inspired by misogyny and the male gaze. My starting reference is the Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi. Through her well-documented experiences of (double) violence – first as a victim of rape, and then a victim of torture metered out by male justice, the hand became the central visual motif in my work: hands used in defence, hands tortured, hands of an empowered defiant artist. I aim to highlight the continued prevalence of these issues of contemporary misogyny and abuse against women. This work challenges notions of what is ‘desirable' or 'attractive’, contrasting them with a morbid fascination of torture, power and control- forces that continue to deform the individual physically as well as mentally. The work also references the disturbing reality that approximately 65%, around 6 in 10, women in Ireland experience some form of sexual abuse, assault, or harassment. This increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, as reflected through the medical gloves used.
