My current practice is motivated by the ongoing impacts of trauma, stemming from my lived experience as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. My work revolves around the dichotomies of silence and visibility, and denial and acceptance, whilst aiming to confront the cognitive dissonance that surrounds the taboo topic through a transformative, post-photographic painting practice. The importance of awareness, challenging taboos, and acknowledging the ubiquitous nature of childhood sexual abuse is a major driving force behind my practice. Within my work I aim to open up these conversations through exploring vulnerability and the potential for a healing exchange between myself and an audience.

'Surface Tensions' explores an unearthing of traces of trauma within personal family archives. Using photographs from my childhood of myself with my abuser as the source material for my paintings, I aim to insert the consciousness of the traumatic subtext that the camera lens did not have access to. Through unsettling the image in order to shift the perspective and reveal an underside to the seemingly typical photographs, the work confronts the cognitive dissonance that surrounds the narrative of hidden trauma.