In the current position of female beauty being widely controversial, I find myself continually returning to the specific aspects often concealed or misrepresented in the magazine industry. In my varying concepts to making art, I often find a focus on the significance of power on the female model. The context of the commodity is dominant throughout my practice, defined by Karl Marx as ‘An object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants for some sort or another’. I have noticed how a person’s materialistic instincts leave them caring more about a ‘thing’ than another person. This comes from a human being’s intellectual capacity to subjectively place importance to the commodity. I am intrigued by the dominant influence that arises from this and the personal impact it brings. My current field of work takes structure from the female as a commodity, which is subtly averted from the eyes of the consumer. 

In various pieces such as Her Glamour (2020), I have been fascinated by the manipulation of the ‘ideal’ model, from their posture to their intended mannerisms, to the broader concept of ‘natural’ beauty. Arguing how females are constantly posing, ‘Using their fingers and hands to trace the outlines of an object or to cradle it or caress its surface’, Erving Goffman brands this pattern ‘the feminine touch’ or ‘ritualistic touching’. This conveys the idea that the caressed product is of desire. 

Harnessing the disciplines of print and ready-mades in this context, I’ve found it imposes similarity to online algorithms; displaying specific advertisements that match our interests. Operating with an impact on viewers’ behaviour without them realising it, I can see this amount of advertising is now ‘normal’ and exploited and just how pervasive adverts are in our lives. In an exploration of this concept, I also vary between pursuing sculpture and process-led art, allowing a different representation of issues in this industry. Although I go between disciplines, I find I can adapt my ideas on the visual displacement of the body and nature into each designated process. The direction I have formed in my practice has taken me from using existing clothing to appropriating magazine images, looking to adjust and transform the way these intrusive commercial adverts and industries impact our personal interests.

In a society where the internet is taking over, I am inspired by the creation and depth in print work, learning its importance with the different interactions it has with its viewers. My interest in the ready-made stems from the simplicity in which you can manipulate an ordinary found object. By repositioning them into new works of art, its original significance disappears in the hope of creating new points of view. From my work taking on these various forms, I hope to curate new and interpretable perspectives for the viewer.