I started by valuing the cathartic process of creating my work more than ever before. I explored this with participatory activities (Breaking Point/KAOS Exhibition) and my own making processes throughout every work. I feel this makes the work more genuine and gives it an active real-world impact allowing it to become a step towards improving the problems it seeks to bring awareness to. Overall, I believe my early pieces were successfully sparking conversation about the treatment of women in our societies, women masking their troubles/traumas, as well as concepts of female rage, fragility and conformity.
From further research into similar artworks, I found Janine Antoni’s ‘Gnaw’ (1992)2 as well as ‘Sudden as a Massacre’ (2011) by Kate Gilmore3. Both of these inspired me visually for my works as well as giving confidence that my work doesn’t have to solve any feminist issue in itself, it can simply be a piece that seeks to present the discomfort and anger of women about the constant violation of their rights and bodies.
Using clay – similarly to these artists – allowed me to explore the inescapable universal nature of these issues and how intertwined they are with our history and culture. In her 2024 thesis, Catherine Roche describes how there is “no other substance is so closely connected with human existence, spanning millennia.”4. Additionally, it is a medium with a unique relationship to time – especially when unfired. It can replicate ancient artifacts whilst still having the potential to be reused multiple times in the future. It lacks permanence and therefore commands focus onto the process of the work. Whereas fired clay brings a different fragility whilst being fired and as cracks and holes emerge in my work.
I also began to play with the physical properties of clay as a material – exploring it’s unescapable qualities which Antoni and Gilmore also leaned into. The main inspiration I gained was after noticing the ghost of my fingerprints and hand contours that would be left after manipulating wet clay. Combined with research into Janine Antoni5, this led me to creating small figures of women’s bodies by simply squeezing and clawing at lumps of clay (Handled 1 & 2), I felt they were successful but that the texture and scale needed to be heightened to properly portray my concepts.
The obvious hand/finger indentations make a comment about the permanent physical and mental impacts of sexual assault and violence against women. The random nature of the material and process also leave a vast range of uneven shapes, deepening the meaning by having the catalogue of unique bodies represent the universal nature of feminist issues. It makes the forms relatable, strengthened by the imprints of wrinkles and other uneven features from my hands that give a skin-like texture to the works, bringing more reality.
After being inspired by Attua Aparicio’s ‘Drip Cups’6, I experimented with melting glass into my sculptures to add another decaying element of texture once fired. However, in the process of scaling up the work, the piece began to explode in the kiln and it became obvious that I would have to balance my mark-making with the additional of this element. I am still navigating and exploring this due to the material’s unpredictable nature.
Since I intend for my sculptures to be viewed from all angles, I began working with presenting them upon circular plinths/structures to invite a viewer to walk around as well as spend longer with the work. After experimentation with draping fabric to create a plinth that mirrored the shape of the works themselves, it was received as distracting and therefore I have chosen to build a low-height cylinder-shaped plinth for my final show which should be large enough to simply act as a barrier between the work and viewer. I use this on a comment on how normalised and accepted misogyny is – although legally unacceptable. It points out how arbitrary such boundaries are if it is still deeply engrained in our culture to disregard them – there is a separation between the viewer and the work, they command the treatment of precious artifacts, however they have already been attacked to form their existence.
1 White Cube, “Tracey Emin, Bermondsey (2024),” White Cube, 2024, https://www.whitecube.com/gallery-exhibitions/tracey-emin-bermondsey-2024.
2 “Janine Antoni. Gnaw. 1992 | MoMA,” The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA, 2024), https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/298/4513.
3 GILMORE, KATE. 2025. “KATE GILMORE.” KATE GILMORE. 2025. https://www.kategilmore.com/sudden-as-a-massacre-2011.
4 Roche, Catherine. 2024. “The Space of Clay: An Investigation of Contemporary Clay-Based Art Practice as a Site of Embodied Viewer Experience : WestminsterResearch.” Westminster.ac.uk. https://westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk/download/f9198d1470e3d76648128bf5165a98261cfdc611e841cee8c662dbdfe651eb72/11749138/Catherine-Roche-The-Space-of-Clay-an%20investigation-of-contemporary-clay-based-art-as-a-site-of-embodied-viewer-experience-REDACTED.pdf.
5Joshua Reiman, “My Body Is Your Vehicle: A Conversation with Janine Antoni,” Sculpture, May 1, 2015, https://sculpturemagazine.art/my-body-is-your-vehicle-a-conversation-with-janine-antoni/.
6 “Drip Cups | STORE |,” Storeprojects.org, 2025, https://storeprojects.org/events/drip-cups/.