Statement
My practice is a pink, pop-cultural, hyper feminine, kitsch escape from the concrete reality of living in a declining industrial town. Growing up in Grangemouth, Scotland, the home of petrol plant Ineos, owned and neglected by oil tycoon Jim Ratcliffe, has infused my work with a rejection of the greyscale society that surrounds me. I aim to dismiss this monotheism of Grangemouth and other post-industrial Scottish towns by demonstrating through my work that the girls of these towns have something important to give. Embracing McRobbie’s notions of bedroom culture, I occupy the space of the bedroom by subverting cultural consumption. I engage with my bedroom as a space for creative production. Bedroom culture describes how girls have traditionally been restricted to their bedrooms and the private sphere. My work hopes to demonstrate girls actively engage and influence popular culture, opposing the idea of girls as passive consumers of culture. Throughout my work I take objects of girlhood developing their semiotic potential as symbols and subvert them to deliver a new meaning and feeling. The curation of feelings that emerge from polka dots, ribbons, teddy bears and pink are woven with larger concepts to create a feeling of girl.
United Kingdom
