Recently I have been wondering where my work is going. The Patriarcal Society is a broad subject. My understanding is that men, at a Primitive level, are both fearful and jealous of the ultimate power that women own to perpetuate future generations, and have tried to hijack this. They do it through control of their lives, control of their fertility, control of their sexuality. I was going to move on from FGM, but I can’t. Every day there is something in the papers regarding the topic. As I feel so angry about it perhaps I need to continue with the subject, but not in a hectoring, didactic way. The enormity, pathos and brutality of the crime needs to be conveyed. I have been doing open screen monoprints of orchids. These, for obvious reasons are symbolic of female genitalia.
I will do a large number of these monoprints – 90 perhaps . I can display them in rows, covering a large area, and call the piece, ” Cut Flowers”. The images will be printed on wet paper and by doing this the colours – reds and purples – will bleed. Bleeding orchids en masse will portray the atrocity of FGM – if people want to make that connection. If they don’t then hopefully the 90 monoprints , all individual and all with reds and blues and purples merging into each other in an interesting way, will have an aestheticly pleasing impact.
I have aso etched the orchid image. This has a more determined line and by printing it on blood splattered effect paper , it conveys the message too. However, I prefer the silkscreen monoprints – the bleeding of the colours produces an almost fleshy appearance…
The paper I use is important. Some of my earlier bleeding flowers were on cartridge paper. These, although effective , do not have as robust a feeling to them – the paper has bent and curled and looks flimsy. The challenge now is to find sufficient quantities of Somerset paper!
