Under Construction 
Works in progress, 2018

I use found objects to explore how the past, particularly personal histories are remembered and constructed. I am interested in the lives of ordinary women whose identities are lost to history, and the unseen domestic craft and labour they have participated in for centuries. I am fascinated by flea markets and the seemingly endless mounds of personal ephemera they display. The people who once owned these discarded objects remain anonymous to us. Absent bodies are merely hinted at in worn photographs and yellowing scraps of lace. It is both the presence and absence of information that I find compelling - enigmatic personal items induce a sense of familiarity and intimacy, while still obscuring the lives from which they originate.
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These paper cuttings have been created from written letters and photographs sourced from flea markets. Their designs are informed by the abstract patterns found in lace. The interplay of positive and negative space echoes the fragmentary way we discover and construct the past.