CHEMICAL UNBALANCE: A Body Alchemised

This continuing project combines the chemistry of the darkroom with the menopausal body as a way of exploring—and bringing to light...in full light—the changes that are occurring, without and within. It aims to honour the transformational power that comes with the end of fertility.

I have made these chemigrams by painting, dropping, spitting, spraying, and laying anti-aging serums, healing balms, and bodily fluids on expired photographic paper. Alternating between fixer and developer, the resulting images—each as unique as every ovary-bearing person’s experience—allude to the anthropological, biological, psychosocial, biblical, and celestial.

Reproductive systems are made from blood, old egg, and HRT; breasts from dried milk; the neo-Neolithic Superwomen alchemised by Superdrug.

This project is an act of protest. It does not minimise the physical, mental, social, or emotional challenges that accompany this transition, but it does aim to acknowledge those factors and find the beauty, empowerment, and humour that can come from being raw and honest about them.  The resulting transformations, using the materials that symbolise and prop us in middle-age, create works that maximise our identity and celebrate it. 

Installation at Free Range Graduate Exhibition at Truman Brewery on June 20-23, 2024