I am a conceptual, text-based artist working primarily with ceramics and installation. My practice examines how everyday language, often dismissed as jokes or ‘banter’, operates as a form of power, shaping behaviour, belief, and lived experience. I focus on misogynistic and gendered language, particularly the ways it is normalised through institutions such as the media, policing, and everyday social exchange.

 

After stepping away from a long career in the corporate world, I began to recognise how deeply language had shaped my own experiences, and those of other women around me. The words we are spoken to, casually, repeatedly, and often without consequence, linger long after they are said, embedding themselves psychologically and physically. My work emerges from these accumulated encounters.

 

An early encounter with text-based art made me realise that language could be slowed down, held, and made visible. Rather than passing over words as we do on screens and in headlines, my work asks for a longer, more uncomfortable attention. I collect real phrases, overheard, reported, institutional, or shared, and recontextualise them through labour-intensive making processes that resist speed and disposability.

 

Materiality is central to my practice. Clay, weight, scale, and surface act as vessels for language, giving physical form to what is often invisible or minimised. The works carry evidence of touch, repetition, and time, mirroring how language is learned, reinforced, and passed on. Text becomes something that cannot be ignored, easily excused, or quickly forgotten.

 

At the heart of my work is the tension between discomfort and truth. I am interested in how harmful language is normalised, excused, or softened, and how this contributes to wider systems of control, silencing, and inequality. By replaying these words in unfamiliar, embodied forms, I invite viewers to confront their own relationship to language — what they repeat, tolerate, or challenge.

 

My work aims to open space for reflection and public conversation. By holding language still and making its weight felt, I seek to challenge how we speak, listen, and ultimately how we behave toward one another.