This is a digital mockup of how I would have displayed the real hair, which form words upon bathroom tiles.
I have most recently been using mediums such as sculpture, performance, installation, and digital imaging to explore themes of sexuality, gender, shame and religion. I call on both my own experience with institutionalised religion as a gay person, and the wider scope of queer opression throughout history at the hands of a society often ignorant to their identity and their struggle.
I’m interested in the way the shame we are burdened with becomes both internalised, manifesting in ill mental health and warped self-image, and subsequently externalised, in acts of both self-destruction and the poor treatment of others within our own community, whom we should be lifting up.
JM
“Heretic” is made up of many single strands of hair. Each one holds your DNA. What does your hair say about you? Hair can be a very defining part of our identity, a declaration of both masculinity and femininity. What happens when we are ashamed of the parts of our identity that aren’t so easily changed? These aspects of ourselves follow us everywhere we go, and can’t be washed off. Perhaps over time they can be eroded, shower after shower. Shame lingers in the grouting and rises in the steam.