This series of paintings is a retrospective selection of works (2005 – 20016) that explore feminine aesthetics.
The ‘dress’ shape appears as metaphor for myself, the politics of the female body, seduction and desire. The sewing pattern pieces act as female blueprints as I play with fabrication, costume and craft, in the reinterpretation and reinvention of my textile background.
The works were inspired by my formative years surrounded by industrious family seamstresses, women who immersed themselves in the creative outlet of sewing, knitting, crochet, and needlework. The series was also strongly influenced by 9 years (now 20) spent in a studio in Montreal’s historic Grover building, a former textile mill, manufacturing women’s haut-couture clothing and lingerie.
Alongside the challenge of being an artist with a visual impairment, I am guided by an intuitive and autobiographical approach, exploiting this disability by combining elements of distortion, blurriness, and fractured image to interpret and communicate the way in which I physically see the world.