“Born in 1989, I am a part of what we might call the ‘Girl Power Generation’. Primary school involved embodying one of the five Spice Girls on the school playground, and asking parents relentlessly for white (or tigerprint) platforms. I was raised to believe I could be anything, so when I took a particular liking to art, I was told I could follow that path if I wanted to. I focused a lot on producing pieces of women then, too.
But despite my desires and despite the movement I had grown up a part of, the underlying inequality was strong enough to make me doubt myself and my heart. Instead I took the academic route (because girls could go to university now): “Leave art as a passion. It’s not really a job for bright girls like you”.
Over the course of the following fifteen years I experienced first hand what being a girl really meant. It meant gender pay gaps and “asking for it” if you wore a skirt too short; walking with keys between fingers and taking well-lit routes home. It also meant not realising until we all realised together, that it wasn’t right that this is the way we have to live our lives. That despite what we’re told – that we’re empowered and confident and independent – women are still living the lives that the male patriarchy moulded for us.
So when I had my young son, and when his difficult birth meant I couldn’t go back to work full time and I struggled to find employment as a part-time professional, I decided instead to focus my efforts on making my passion my work, highlighting my experiences through that work.
Now, I am a contemporary figurative artist based in Norwich, England, painting women every day. The paintings are often infused with a sense of disguise or being silenced, and manifest in slashes of colours and shapes across eyes or mouths. Features might be highlighted or bolded, a representation of us exaggerating parts of our features for the male gaze.
I approach my work piece by piece, and allow my work to be fluid with my emotions. My current works are a series of 100 portraits painted across 100 days, intended to give myself some space and freedom to find my style and dedicate my time to my work.
It’s taken me a long time to find the confidence to pursue what I love. And now I’m here, I intend to stay.
Afterall, it is for us creatives to continue to use art as a means to drive change and to highlight the inequalities that surround us.
