I found and find myself targeted by Louise Bourgeois’ sculptures (which I saw at Hayward Gallery earlier this year.) I never knew I had this life form within my body, so I never got to connect, never got to comfort, and I never got to choose whether to keep it. I recall holding my stomach knowing that my unborn child’s corpse was still inside me, pleading with it not to leave.

I want to explore this connection, or rather lack of, specifically, the connection I was never able to experience. I want to attempt to find this and reclaim it. Through different methods and contexts, I will be looking at forming this long-lost, never existing bond. Bodily connection through fingerprints and body printing etc

WHAT MEDIAS WILL I BE USING?

I want to experiment with different medias a lot at the beginning of this project – as I have not had much of a chance whilst being at ECA. I then want to refine this and be more selective with my practise towards Christmas time. To enable myself, I have booked workshops in areas such as Metal, Glass, Casting, 3D Printing in Clay, Jewellery, Maltings, Design Informatics, Photography processing, Dry point, and letterpress. Other than these workshops introducing me to new material, they also add excitement and motivate me more to create.

I want my work to be mainly drawing, printing and sculptural based. I enjoy the pairing of these different methods and its ability to portray thoughts and feelings in a more 3 dimensional and thorough way. Louise Bourgeois is inevitably a huge inspiration due to this as well as Tracey Emin.

ANY CURRENT PLANS GOING FORWARD?

I have two current sculptural plans as well as a few ink blot prints I have made. My first sculpture plan is to target the site of injury: I want to recreate the location of where my miscarriage happened. A synopsis being: Bedsheet with an in print of my body, solid to keep this print, with a red blood stain around the genital region. The second idea is to create an image of feeling, an overexaggerated image of my mental longing: Largescale sculpture of a womanly figure with her legs spread attempting to pull and re-insert her miscarried fetus back into her body.

WHY THIS TOPIC?

Overall, I decided to go down this rather personal project route as a means of overcoming my artistic block by targeting the source. I was really stumped last year due to the circumstances of my miscarriage and could not motivate myself to do anything and by crafting work around what troubles me the most, I feel as though I could make both personal and artistic breakthroughs.