Half Baked, 2023- ongoing

I often work in a way that could be described as something akin to a Method Artist: I make in character, drawing on the narrative ability of tools, materials and settings fitting to the person I am working through. 

My current character, a housewife of a certain age, is cutting up baking, recipe and interior books (which she has held on to since the 70s and 80s) and is collaging in a state of fugue-like catharsis.

She is not setting out to make works to go on a wall or behind glass. They were never intended for public display. And I don’t think she even considers these as collages. They serve a purpose: An escape, a working through.

These books are essentially a conversation between myself and my character. In making these collages, I am not seeking to make something finished or polished; rather, through this making, I am gaining a deeper understanding of who she is, her motivations and what her story might be. 

Within this series, I am drawn to explore the materiality of collage rather than its ability to describe or express. My character is not an artist. This allows me to play and seek out amateurism and wrongness: to unpick and find gaps in, the conventions of collage