My art practice has led me to explore the intersection of poetry and art, delving into themes of womanhood and mental health. Through my work, I strive to encapsulate the intricacies of my mind and emotions, inviting viewers to engage with it personally. My art is accessible and interactive, aiming to involve the audience in a tactile and emotional encounter with the work. Using language and writing in my work has been a consistent theme throughout my time at Kingston School of Art. In ‘Penny Drops’ I wanted to create a permanent performance in the form of a sculpture, to capture thoughts so often fleeting and forgotten into physical objects of pause. I wanted the sculpture to have the essence of a ‘hoard’, a collection of old coins, like the ones my father kept after the UK went into decimal currency in 1971, capturing a section of his youth. The idea of a familiar currency, shape and texture interjected with dialogue, that soon will become obsolete. When asked about his collection he said, ‘They weren’t valuable at all, I just enjoyed thinking about all the pockets they’d been in, the stories of the people who carried them- the look and the feel of them in your hand’. Coins are becoming redundant in our cashless society, and I hardly feel our Apple pay statements will be gazed at by future generations, but that leaves a legacy of tender that has lost all function, an object that simply exists to capture that moment in time and the essence of the people who held them.
‘They weren’t valuable at all, I just enjoyed thinking about all the pockets they’d been in, the stories of the people who carried them- the look and the feel of them in your hand’