The Corsets Are Off: Revenge is a Dish Best Eaten Cold

I rarely take inspiration head on, preferring to work through ideas with reference to past voices and leaving a conversation in the artistic air. In my figurative work I seek unlikely physical shifts to reveal an inherent awkwardness, throwing into question what we are led to believe is beauty and beautiful. In the media circus of the 21st century we are bombarded by images of apparent perfection, yet we appear to miss the point of the beauty of soul.

My current body of work looks back over centuries of figurative representation to re-evaluate the place of women in societies that demand beauty from them. These new portraits free the sitters of Holbein, Vermeer and Klimt from the constraints of corsets and convention. The corsets are off, and they are not going back on.

The Corsets Are Off Revenge is a dish best eaten cold. The gloves, and corsets, are off now. You should have done your history Mr Policeman. Book of Judith, Holofernes. Quite clever people us women. We can play cat and mouse too. Emeline Pankhurst It is the 21st century and women will no longer be compelled to be beautiful for their audience; only for themselves, and on their own terms. Homaging Klimt's painting Judith I, my offering of Emmeline Pankhurst in Revenge is a Dish Best Eaten Cold has turned the tables on the cat and mouse game the police played with the suffragettes a hundred years ago. The biblical story of Judith tells how she saved her people by seducing the leader of the besieging army and cutting off his head

Acrylic on Canvas

80x100cm

Unframed