15th november 2022

Dear Ayline,

I love your description of ‘air' and our relationship to it, I can see how it is comforting to envisage the world like this, it makes everything tangible. 

The spaces between fullness can be the most powerful of spaces. I’m always conscious of allowing the viewer to have an element of freedom within the artwork, the empty spaces allow the viewer to observe. Journeying through the artwork or finding a place to rest in the space is necessary to fully engage with the piece and with nature. The fullness comes when the viewer is enveloped in the artwork, they complete the space. I play with the physical relationship between the viewer and the material. It is interesting to consider the voids binding everything together with the invisible element ‘air’. I believe that this space is spiritual.

I’ve been thinking about how incredible it is to have an exhibition with a focus on femininity. I look back over history and I see all of the women who have sacrificed for us to have this place in time. Women communicating in art with integrity have laid our foundation. I have felt a freedom to push boundaries and explore subjects deeply, recently I have been studying my relationship with nature as a woman, we physically adapt and change many times within our life time, sometimes these changes are a shock and we need to reset to survive. Many women experience many levels of natural change and I believe we become experts in holding our physical self lightly as well as carrying the burden of past pains. Our identity and power changes over time and this can also be entwined with levels of violence and abuse through objectification. I believe we are all beautiful at every stage of life, like I believe a flower is beautiful at every stage.

I love your meditations with your skin and I love the idea of you studying this into old age.

Do you have thoughts on what it is to be a woman communicating in the art world today? 

Rebecca