My Body Is The Brush

Following my interest in the underrepresentation of female artists, I wanted to highlight the fact that the practice of painting has been the most male dominated art practice throughout art history- which as a whole has been patriarchally dominated.

Up until only around 180 years ago, it was uncommon to see a woman painted by a woman, and if a male painter depicted a woman she was usually a subject for erotic desire, therefore portrayed within the boundaries of the male gaze. Only paintings by men would be considered masterpieces, while the very few female artists were unknown to the world.

My use of my body as the paintbrush is a way of reclaiming the female form in a way that I have control and ownership of as a contemporary woman artist. This is a way of counteracting the historically male narrative in the history of painting. It was also my way of reclaiming the feminine in this kind of practice with body prints, as it had famously been done before by a male artist: Yves Klein, in his Anthropometries series (1960’s), using the female form as his brush in these works.  

I centered my work around creating painted body prints and then using fiber art techniques to embellish them. I used embroidery and beading to reference the visuals the process of decaying under a microscope. I had an interest in the structures and workings of mycelium and their representation of death and decay being a symbol for new life.

I developed my interest in incorporating fiber art into my practice, as the laborious and time consuming yet tactility and versatility of fiber art appeals to me. More importantly, I use fiber art because it’s a rare traditionally feminine and domesticated practice, even if it’s still not considered an actual art form by some critics today. 

This project surrounded the idea of how our bodies are ephemeral sculptures, and the fact that the earth shall reclaim us all in some way or another.

The two works displayed are body prints of the front and back of my body. They are presented with collaged items upon them to portray the way the earth reclaims objects with fungus and moss growth.

acrylic on canvas, tufted wool, dried moss, various gemstones

21cm x 30cm

2023

Earth Reclaim Me

Embroidered body prints, created as part of a series focusing on the relationship between the human body and mycelium during and after life. The embroidery and beading reflect on the visuals of mold growth. 

acrylic on canvas, thread and beads

210mm x 297mm 

2023

Food for Fungi (series of 3) 

Mycelium & My Human Body

This piece is the largest and most significant of the body print series. It depicts my own body printed onto a recycled bedsheet to represent the eternal sleep state of death, as well as the sentiment of recycling being a part of the natural cycle of life, in which mycelium plays a significant part. I also used only recycled beads to embellish this piece, depicting the visuals of mycelium structures and reflecting on their relationship with living organisms during waking life and after death during decomposition.

acrylic on recycled cotton sheet, thread and recycled beads

100cm x 100cm

2023