The Irrepressible series is a collection of women; mothers, daughters, sisters, aunties, grandmothers, nieces and friends. They’ve endured so much. No matter their age, they wear their thoughts, their feelings, their hopes and their fears.
In this series, I wanted to exemplify the beauty in these women through the application of collage, colour and mark making, in a loose and playful way. I hope, in some way, this has resulted in the effortless beauty of these women. Beauty was important for the work itself, however only as it relates to the resilience and strength of women who have felt abuse, trauma, or been controlled in some way in their lifetime.
The only way to infuse these complex emotions into the work is to study the facial anatomy of emotion, and work intently on the features of the face. One woman in particular, was angry in my studio for a very long time. It took many attempts at softening her expression before I could let her out into the world. She may have been angry, she’s also irrepressible.