In The Salon de Reussée, the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo … reworked, new work found within discards, actively mining the thrown away to discover a dialogue for our joint future. The old faces stare out from their canvas world asking past generations what they were thinking when they mined our earth for profit and gain … again and again. The same faces look forward with raised eyebrows, questions for those growing into our future, and asking how we can use art to highlight and change the course of commercialism … leading us to revel in the re-found, the reused, the rediscovered, finding value in the thrown away.
Don’t Fat Shame Big Margaret. Who dictates our size and shape? The good, the bad, the ugly. The centimetres, kilos, dress size zero, small or extra large 18-22. Squeezing us into boxes and frames, the norms, uniformities, to photoshop our beauties with which to taunt those who don’t, can’t or won’t fit. Denying us the beauty of our individualities.
Colour Me Different. Change your own lenses. That’s your job not mine. Strong woman me, strong woman you. My palette suits me.
Landfill. The contents of my waste paper bin, given a second chance. Prescriptions, receipts, sudoku calendar, art trimmings, a rescued frame. Faces keep appearing and asking their recycling questions of me.
All part of a body of work, the Salon de Reussée
“Materials used are old canvasses, their past marks and textures intentionally visible, old half tubes of paints from fund raising artist sales, brushes and tools from a young artist friend who died unexpectedly. My father’s art box recently inherited. I use and treasure these inputs to all my work. And frames, why look to plastic, China, water use and shipping, new pressures on our world, when sheds, attics, jumbles and charity shops are cluttered with the very frames that robbed the earth once already. They cannot surely go to landfill or burn and carbonise.”