Today I have been doing work on the dreaded ‘evaluation document’ that will be marked alongside the grad show at the end of the academic year. It is a 6000 word illustrated essay discussing our practice. I have been researching Richard Prince and his love of collecting.
Collections seem to feature in many artists lives, and filter into their work. In my own work I produce small scale paintings, which are gridded together in the form of a collection. My paintings explore women from the past in different types of institutions, be it the asylum, the school, or even the institution of marriage.
As well as my work exploring collections, I am also facinated with the past. My first degree was in History and Archaeology at the University of Exeter. As LP Hartley said: “The past is a foreign country – they do things differently there.”It is this sense of ‘the other’ that I find intriguing.