Year 2

As creatives, how much power and control do we have over our art? How much do we, and viewers, interact with it?

I focused on my own internal power dynamics, how much influence my disability, endometriosis, has over the artwork I create.

Attempting my explorations through a range of mediums, I quickly discovered that my illness inhibits the process of artmaking, especially outside of my own bed.  I started producing mostly digital artwork, as it can be created anywhere (I found even at hospital) and can be carried with me easily, this took back some control. I decided to find new ways of making despite the climate my disability manufactured.

Over the Christmas break I went to the Tate Modern and found myself particularly interested in Joan Mitchell’s ‘Portfolio of Poems’ (1992) as it includes text within artwork. The artist communicating with the viewer in this way influenced me to include my own poetry in my art, which then directed me to investigate more abstract ways of communication.

Ibrahim El Salahi’s ‘Reborn Sounds of Childhood Dreams I’ (1961-5) I found just as captivating; I was enthused by his use of abstract forms as iconographies. This made me merge the two artists systems and develop the idea of my exhibition piece: to make my thoughts physical rather than written.

I started designing ‘thoughts’ using shape and colour to exemplify its meaning. For example, intrusive thoughts worm their way into my headspace. Therefore, creating snake-like structures.

In the Spring term, I continued to investigate power dynamics, developing from the internal vs external.  I started exploring feminist artists who used their bodies in their artworks. Penny Slinger’s: ‘Spirit Impressions, use of the body and movement’ (1974) and Hannah O’Shea’s’ ‘A Visual Time Span (A Visual Diary) (1975) brought out the ‘hidden’ in such a vivid way related to my ideas of making the unknown known: the disability visible.

These ideas manifested into my short film; standing half-naked, drawing the movement of my chronic pain across my body.

Can you separate the body from the self? My body is damaged, has that impacted my sense of identity? These are questions I asked my Endometriosis community Facebook page. I found that no it hasn’t disintegrated who you actually are as a ‘self’, just that gynaecology departments can see you as just the body and not the self, so you feel more Endometriosis than person.

This turned my attention to the power dynamics between doctor to patient. Which also meant that I could focus on something outside of the internal. I felt that a lack of physical ‘body’ in my artwork complimented my message more, expressing the lack of empathy and robotic nature of the medical industry.

My ‘Do you want to fill me?’ installation used objects to represent a ‘body’, showing the sense of detachment, random items were inserted, and I didn’t have any control over it- I could just see the results at the end. I felt this was vindictive of the processes within Gynaecology departments and of our current socio-cultural climate, the lack of staffing, funding and support for the NHS has meant that quality of care has significantly reduced.

The TV series: The Handmaid’s Tale by Bruce Miller, pictured women as products within a factory, with no bodily autonomy. This channelled into my work because of how those with endometriosis are viewed as both a product of the disease and as symptoms, with no ‘person’ attached.

Fuelled by the idea of being a product within the gynaecology factory, I wanted to use ‘violent’ imagery like what’s featured in the TV series, but without the use of a body.

I began by looking at vintage women’s health posters, shown in the ‘Women In Revolt!’ Exhibition at the Tate Britain. The coldness of its blunt nature- revealing the medieval-looking instruments and fleshy anatomy- I wanted to try and replicate it. So I made work out of my regular treatment, a Zoladex injection.

I appreciated the boldness of showing exactly what it is. Su Richardson’s ‘Bear It In Mind’ installation (1976) exemplified suggesting a body, by using clothing with no human. This inspired the conceptualisation of my final piece: hospital gowns with endometrial cysts and tumours spilling out of the fronts, which were then sprayed with fake blood. I put patient numbers above each one, explaining the narrative that you don’t know who this is, there is no ‘body’ therefore no ‘self’. Its ‘just’ another endometriosis patient.

I wanted this work to scream the internal pain and trauma of Endometriosis that is so hard for doctors to ‘see’ and lay it in a brutally external way.