My Artistic Practice

My practice was previously centred around meat. Having a strong centre in recent discussion and a cultural shift away from meat, I focused on meats political issues and its social standing. Meat and cuts of meat have its own social standing, the rich can afford the filet mignon, the poor having the offcuts and offal. I looked at this issue by infantilising it, creating play-sets of the differing stages of meat farming and process. Although the farming process is the same, the meat cuts ultimately end up in different households dependant on the part of the animal. However, my practice has shifted. Meat and the topic of meat are hard to discuss without bringing in its parallels and connotations it has with the female body. The woman has had to deal with issues of being treated like a piece of meat. A consumable object for the man. I have dealt, first hand at this, being drugged and raped much like a farm animal, then later surviving an abusive relationship where I too became that piece of meat I had previously studied. My work has now shifted into the exploration of that experience and the overarching social oppression women have suffered through at the hands of man. Creating sculptures now that solidify that experience and depict the power of a woman through the process of clay. The clay is fired and hardened, glazed and hardened again.