MICROCOSM

My artwork sabotages the comforting persona of knitting and its association with babies and nice old ladies, by sculpting it into monstrous alien forms derived from fungal networks, internal organs and parasitic creatures.  The anthropomorphic creations consist of womb‑like vessels and intestinal structures, influenced by science fiction films exploring animation and metamorphosis.

“Mycelium is a body, without a body plan”.

Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life, p55.

Inspired by the collective unconscious as the mother and trickster archetypes, the pieces explore rebirth, either as a physical parasitic invasion or removal of the persona.  Destabilising the interconnectedness of knitting, cuteness and nurture, the pieces are positioned within the weird, grotesque and incongruous.  The work aims to evoke the sensation of touch through the viewer’s tactile imagination, while also provoking the disgust mechanism, a learned reaction of repulsion to something harmful, contaminating or socially taboo.

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Microcosm is a collection of tubes and biomorphic vessels, mixing cuddly textures with visceral discharges.  Inspired by the fungal root networks connecting all living systems, the installation interlinks the three larger pieces, with a disparate collection of materials, including natural, plastic, rubber and neon yarns, along with ceramics, wax, plaster, latex, human and animal hair.

The installation include three separate pieces.  Pupate consists of a collection of long tendrils erupting from a soft central body, stuffed with coarse sisal fibres.  The piece is informed by the film The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) to explore metempsychosis rebirth - where souls pass into other bodies.  Hatchery is an intestinal-plant hybrid featuring a squishy latex head, protruding suction pads and collection of birthing pods painted with wax.  The work is partly inspired by the film Alien (1979) and tapeworm reproductive methods, where an egg-filled segment detaches and crawls out of the bottom to find its next host. Brood is a rampaging horde of intestinal snakes, burrowing through the walls and floor, and leaving a trail knitted excrement in their wake.  The sculpture is informed by the films Tremors (1990) and Svankmajer’s Alice (1988), and blur the boundary between the inner and outer body.

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The pieces reference Eva Hesse’s minimalist latex forms, Tai Shani’s neon and holographic surfaces, Jonathan Baldock’s ceramic juxtapositions of hard and soft material, plus the multi-material-sensory approaches of Annette Messager and Tim Spooner.

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