Where Balance Sits, 2020

29.5 x 21 cm

pencil, watercolour, watercolour pencil on claire fontaine paper* (acid free, PEFC)

Where do we sit between order and chaos, as we balance different systems and beliefs?

During lockdown, I started drawing regularly. As we moved through these different spaces of new routines, freedom, isolation, worry, I took this time to reflect on my practice and started an ongoing series of drawings. I would drop, place, arrange ribbons and draw – selecting certain shapes and forms that spoke to me of unravelling, tying, holding – inspired by stories of women who ‘held it together’ through adversity, and how their stories continue to change. Using textile metaphor, materiality, a sense of movement and change – I distilled a sense from my reading into the compositions.

The drawings came through thinking about influences on me as a child. I thought about the women we are are told about in Catholicism – and what there real stories might be – Mary (Jesus’s mother) Mary Magdalene and the story of St Teresa of Avila – who was represented by Bernini in his famous baroque sculpture Ecstasy of St Teresa .