Biography
I paint drunk women. My work is concerned with the complexities of the relationship between women and intoxication. I see a continuity between maenads, mystics, hysterics and female binge drinking. Society has had an inherent fear of these groups; from the laws forbidding the consumption of wine by women in ancient Greece ("because of the belief that women had magic powers and that if wine was imbibed by these already powerful and mysterious people then the spiritual/religious link between women and the gods would make men powerless” - Moira Plant), to the Spanish Inquisition's policy of burning mystic nuns as alumbro (one who 'falsely' claimed to achieve direct communication with god).
Alcohol and drugs become an outlet for suppressed chthonian human expression, an escape from the niceties of being a girl – she may sit with her knees together now but tonight she might urinate in the street and start some fights. In a 'post-religious age' spiritual zeal can transfer to hedonism; I see a visual similarity in this hedonism to traditional Christian iconography. In the faces of pale, glassy eyed, semi-conscious women one can see saints and martyrs. I delight in a new sisterhood of inebriated nuns whilst being mindful of the health dangers and horrors of alcoholism.
