I am delighted to have this new work selected for Interstitial at The Safehouse, Peckham.

Having recently exhibited this self-portrait in The National Portrait Gallery, it’s interesting to show a redacted version here, reflecting the still alive feelings of reveal and conceal, the push and pull when dealing with the personal. The exploration of artists making self-portraits the self-investigation and stigma around midlife and female value as we age. While researching this work, I discovered Virginia Woolf’s theory of killing the Angel in the house in Lauren Elkins’s book Art Monsters. This need to create from the gut without the need to please resonates with making this work. All along, I have felt myself led by the work, not making it for an audience but making it because it needed to be made for me to see myself more clearly and to connect back with my body, which felt severed. There is a journey in the work, a lone battle, with no one else on the field but myself. Maybe I am the Angel that needs to be killed or at least get out of my way. The Safehouse has such a prominent character with its dilapidated walls. The polaroids are in conversation with the colours, traces, and imprints of previous shows, so they are different when shown on the white walls of a gallery. The location of The Safehouse adds a layer to the work, reflecting time vulnerability and the wear and tear of life.

I am enjoying letting the work out of hibernation into the world.