Note: A version of this essay was presented in the form of a lecture entitled 'Voicing the Voiceless' at Conjuring Creativity conference on contemporary art and the esoteric, which took place in London on the 15th and 16th March 2025. “‘Misereatur vestry omnipotens deus, et, dismissis peccatis vestris…’The words issued light as a soap bubble… Continue reading On Voices
Category: Art
On ‘Phantasmagoregasm’
“In Our Fatal Magic, it is the wound or cut that produces the portal that enables the double movement between becoming and unbecoming.” Bridget Crone, ‘Wounds of Unbecoming’, introduction to Our Fatal Magic by Tai Shani (Strange Attractor Press, 2019) This article should be more properly called ‘On Tai Shani’s Our Fatal Magic’, as it… Continue reading On ‘Phantasmagoregasm’
On ‘Spirits of the Riverbank’
The First Show This collaborative project started with an artists' residency in August 2023, at the International Kuenstlerhaus of Kebbel Villa, which is a contemporary art museum incorporating an artist residency programme located in Schwandorf-Fronberg, Bavaria, Germany. I was lucky enough to go with three artists that I have been working with since we all… Continue reading On ‘Spirits of the Riverbank’
On Hares
“Hare hare god send thee care, I am in a hare's likeness now, but I shall be a woman even now, hare hare god send thee care.” Extract from Isobel Gowdie's third confession, 1662 Albrecht Dürer: Self Portrait at 28, oil on panel (1500) I've just arrived in Germany, on my way to Kebbel-Villa's International… Continue reading On Hares
On Alice Neel’s Babies
I first came across Alice Neel's work when my tutor Richard recommended to me the documentary Alice Neel, a film made by her grandson in 2007. This was another hit from the Glasgow School of Art library's DVD collection. This film, which I watched in my second year at GSA at age eighteen or nineteen,… Continue reading On Alice Neel’s Babies
On the Paintings of Rouen
I've been writing a bit about painting recently. Oddly enough, it actually took a couple of years of writing this blog to get going on painting analysis; I started writing mainly about film, literature, and other assorted cultural ephemera (lesbian vampires); I would continue making my own work in watercolour and oils, but painting remained outside my writing.
On Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s Birds
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: The Counter (oil on canvas, 2010) "At Ease As The Day Breaks Beside Its Erasure And At Pains To Temper The Light At Liberty Like The Owl When The Need Comes Knocking To Fly In League With The Night." Lynette Yiadom-Boakye With a borrowed Tate membership card in hand, I recently managed to… Continue reading On Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s Birds
On Marina Abramović and Pornography
“Simone was tall and lovely. She was usually very natural; there was nothing heartbreaking in her eyes or her voice. But on a sensual level, she so bluntly craved any upheaval that the faintest call from the senses gave her a look directly suggestive of all things linked to deep sexuality, such as blood, suffocation,… Continue reading On Marina Abramović and Pornography
On Paula Rego’s Feet
“And, they tell us, we at home Live free from danger, they go out to battle: fools! I’d rather stand three times in the front line than bear One child.” Euripides, Medea (431 BCE) So it’s been one year and nine months since I finished my MA at Chelsea College of Arts, and in the… Continue reading On Paula Rego’s Feet
On ‘Chroma’
"Blue of the bugloss, and self-sown cornflower; Blue of the sage and winter hyacinth; Pink and white roses blooming in June; And the scarlet rosehips, fiery in winter; The bitter sloes to make sweet gin. Brambles in the autumn, And gorse in spring."Derek Jarman, Chroma: A Book of Colour - June 1993 (1993) This is… Continue reading On ‘Chroma’
Sertraline Dreams 