Fragility

This drawing is one of many of I made between 2007 and 2008, as part of an extended portrait project for one of the world's longest surviving kidney patients. The project was entitled "Sheila, Anatomy of a Life" and consisted of drawings and prints of Sheila's body; focusing particularly on her hands and arms which embodied the extent to which chronic kidney failure and the consequent treatment over the next twenty years of dialysis and beyond, had shaped her body, her life and her philosophical and spiritual outlook.

Sheila Oliver was diagnosed with kidney failure as a young woman in the early 1960's even before dialysis machines were available in hospitals in Britain - she had to wait, not knowing if she would die before dialysis treatment would be available. She then endured dialysis treatment on the very earliest and most primitive of machines. Due to the scarcity of the machines, external ethics committees were set up in renal units to decide who would receive haemodialysis treatment; those with 'a spouse and a house' were favoured.  

Our collaboration and project was to some extent an attempt to trace Sheila's own life history as well as the history of renal care in Britain since 1960, as seen in the lines, scars, bruises and traces etched onto her skin, and her protruding veins. For example the fistula in her forearm, an artery and a vein fitted together by a vascular surgeon to enable a hook up to the dialysis machine, was constructed in the early 1960's and in a sense can be seen as an embodiment of the history of renal care and a piece of medical history in itself.  Above is a dry-point etching, one of a series, based on a photograph of Sheila taken in my studio in Oxford in 2008.

Above are a series of test books I made for Sheila, the books are experimental works, combining image and text rather than trying to convey a conventional narrative of Sheila's story.  Sheila finally received a kidney transplant in 1989 having survived and endured over twenty years of dialysis treatment.  Sheila's life story is more unusual in that she married her doctor, who also was responsible for setting up the Renal Unit at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford.  Her life has been indelibly marked and intertwined with the history and development of Renal care in Britain.

At the time of my collaboration with Sheila between 2007 and 2009 we had hoped to find funding from the Wellcome Trust to make a book and an exhibition about her life, unfortunately I was unable to secure the funding required to see this project through to it's final conclusion, but it is my hope that this work can be completed and exhibited in the future when funding allows.

More text and images to follow.

Regional Clean Blue

Remnant from a performance made at art school in 1995, a collaboration with Liza Lemsatef;  a feminist critique of Yves Klein's 'International Klein Blue'. We found on the street a big tin of blue paint, we knocked our studios together and build a domestic environment, having made a right mess, we cleaned our house.  The blue paint was transferred into empty cleaning bottles and by squirting the paint from the cleaning containers and using dishcloths we cleaned/painted the walls, floors and every single item in our house, including ourselves, with 'Regional Clean Blue'.

More images to follow.

Suitcase of Dreams

I remember the day I started to record my dreams, it was the 8th November 1995, the day that my mum suddenly died out of the blue.  Somehow turning inwards was the only thing to do.  I have kept dream journals since that day almost twenty years ago.

This is one of my suitcase of dreams, together with a blackboard from a performance entitled "Talk to me" (more details to follow).  I like to think of this practice of dreaming and writing as the ground of my work as an artist.  In recalling my dreams I am able to connect to a huge source of  imagery, ideas, characters, and stories.  I have amplified one dream I had several years ago, about an encounter with a very special breed of sheep, into one overarching project that spans the mediums of drawing, mask-making, felt-making and performance.

(See my other blog http://globalsheepwomanresearchlaboratory.blogspot.de for more details).

Although I've been dreaming and writing for so long I know the work has barely started, the hard work is to sift, design, craft, graft and bring some of these images through into waking reality, also the ability to know which images are worth bringing to life and which are better left in the swamp of my unconscious mind.

A friend of mine recently asked me how I recorded my dreams, I replied that I always wrote them down with the occasional drawing.  Then I realised that this was not quite correct as I looked through an old dream diary from 2009 which consists almost entirely of drawings.  I find it much harder to draw my dreams than I do to write them but somehow the images no matter how feint take me straight back to the feeling of the dream.

Here is a sneak preview from one dream diary.

Portraits of Friends - Sarah

Dancing to Swimming Instructions

Umbilical Dress and Baby Blanket

These images were made during my second year at art school. At the time I was living in a tiny bed-sit with my two year old son and grieving - due to the sudden death of my mother.

'BFG'

Above are images of a rather ambitious, if clumsy attempt, to make a giant puppet for a carnival parade.  The BFG "Big Friendly Giant" was made with primary school children at an after school carnival club.

An armature of the giant 'puppet' was constructed with a series of circles made by the children from willow or 'withies'. Bamboo poles were used to re-inforce the structure, and then giant clothes; a shirt, waistcoat and trousers were made by the pupils. The BFG's head was made with papier-mache and then painted by pupils and teachers from the school. His hands were made from cardboard and mounted onto bamboo poles. In addition to the BFG a giant trumpet and net was designed and constructed by the children.