'Live
art is central to my fine art practice. My work mixes a variety of
medias, often involving sound and video projection and the creation
of live environments. The real-time experience and inherent ephemerality
are significant factors informing my choice of live art as key medium
within
my practice. This is largely a politicised choice. Within my work I am
aware of the effects of the recordable technologies on live experience
and I consciously comment on the links and contradictions between liveness
and mediatization, My work is strongly based within a socio-political context and investigates the extent to which social ideologies regulate individual identity and construct gender. I use my physical body as a communicative force; I use it to express the key issues relating to my practice. Hence the materiality of the body is highly relevant in my practice and I see my body within the work as being similar to a tool with which I positively violate the preconceived systems, borders and rules that impinge on individual identity. My work acknowledges the power of actual bodily presence and utilizes abject biological functions to subvert gendered ideologies. My work is consistently concerned with critiquing the gendered experiences of the female body, inspired by both my personal experience and my observations of how femininity is promoted and perceived within political and social contexts. This strain of inquiry emerged from explorations into the medias singular portrayal of idealized women. My current major work is based on my observations of the physical and emotional turmoil and joy I experienced through pregnancy. Linking these personal observations to broader political situations, in order to question the fears that drive human difference and the affections that dissolve it. This work is concerned with the conflicting elements of our existence such as love and loss, closeness and separation, pain and pleasure, hope and tragedy, birth and death. Informing this recent work is an investigation into acts of female militancy and extreme nationalism. Recent works resulting from this investigation examine the sexual politics of power associated with the female body, exploring the ways in which femininity and the reproductive functions of the female body are utilized within political propaganda. . Further examining the boundaries that exist between the empowerment of and the systematic control of the individual. Within these works the transcendental possibilities explored in critical theories relating to transgendered identities and the merger of the body with techno-scientific invention are considered. Essential to these works is a questioning of the political agendas informing an increasingly multicultural world. Integral to my practice is my resolve to make work that is open to interpretation, work that raises questions rather than dominating with conclusive answers or opinions.' |