Utilising experimentations with materiality, my practice is motivated by a desire to explore methods of control through the lens of ritual. Drawing on Catholic material culture as a frame of reference, my work alters familiar ritual objects, rendering them uncanny in order to highlight the malleability of belief systems. I am interested in working with waste materials, those that are discarded or remnants from past events. This includes turning foraged materials into paints, inks, and dyes; aligning their medicinal or spiritual properties with the conceptual themes of the work. The process of transformation that these materials undergo echoes the idea of internal journeying and identity crafting that my work explores as I pull together meaning from disparate events and objects to create the sense of something sacred. Using both methods of construction and deconstruction, I question how objects can become imbued with power – does it stem from religious authority, physicality or individual pattern spotting? How can art mediate these experiences and represent these points of inquiry?
Bio
Awards
Skills & Experience
- Collections Care Assistant at the University of Edinburgh
- Events Assistant at Edinburgh College of Art
Unveiling
Unveiling, graduate show installation, 2026
This body of work explores themes of transformation, superstition, and spiritual practices through constructing and deconstructing ritual objects. It draws on histories of women's devotional labour, the medieval sheela-na-gig, and the process of dreaming to create a space for contemplation which highlights the transient nature of internal belief systems. Seeping Through unfolded over the course of the exhibition. I placed a new pair of frozen wine hands on the sculpture every day, the wine stain spreading across the crochet rug. The materiality of these works is central to their meaning and is outlined below.
Seeping Through: reclaimed crochet doilies, recycled bed sheet, wooden pellet, deconstructed church pew, recycled metal piping, ceramic, red wine, embroidered cotton muslin dyed with rust and combined with bio-leather made from tea waste and herbs to promote good sleep and dreams (chamomile, lavender, verbena, valerian root and mugwort).
Stitched Up: reclaimed pew ends, pew bench pieces, locks of hair, sewing needles and silver jewellery wire.
Unbound: 59 wooden beads and 6 pieces of silver jewellery wire.
Dream Board: reclaimed oak church hymn board, paper made from paper waste, wood pulp, and herbs to promote good sleep and dreams (chamomile, lavender, verbena, valerian root and mugwort), with ink made from crushed birch wood charcoal and gum arabic as a binder.
Related student work
