and you too have come into the world to do this

Residency at Analogue Farm, Lancashire. August 2022

I took as my starting point convergences between the ‘wild woman’ trope and Renaissance images of Mary Magdalene / Mary of Egypt as an ascetic, covered in thick body hair, to produce a series of paintings reflecting on relationships between women, loss and the landscape, as well as how ‘folk’ iconographies and symbologies have been co-opted by institutions towards various political agenda. Legend suggests that after Jesus’s death, Mary Magdalene lived alone in the desert for many years, praying and fasting until her clothes became ragged. When they eventually fell away, she grew thick body hair to protect her from the elements. This story has become a potent symbol of my own bereavement, speaking to women’s hair as adaptation, defence and sanctuary, as well as the reflective, potentially cathartic power of time spent in natural landscapes and in solitude.

Series of 10 paintings. Gouache and acrylic-gouache on paper. 36x47cm