My recent work investigates the relationship between colonial national identity and systemically ‘othered’ representations of colonised people, exploring the role of media in perpetuating racialised narratives that obfuscate the true violence of occupation, historically and today. Here, I stand with the people of Palestine as their basic humanity continues to be denied.
The central pieces depict Gerald of Wales, a medieval priest and historian; commissioned by Henry II in 1188, Gerald wrote ‘Topographia Hibernica’, an illustrated survey of Ireland that employed anti-pagan colonial fantasies of Irishness to religiously substantiate and vindicate Norman invasion and occupation. I chose to use Gerald’s own mythologisations – his fascination with hybridity, violence and bestial sexualisation – as reference for his own portrait, equally seductive and repellent.
I graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 2024 with a First-Class BA Hons degree in Sculpture and Environmental Art and was awarded the Benno Schotz prize for sculpture.
