The Palimpsest Body

Palimpsest, in its purest historical definition, refers to parchment or vellum that has been washed and erased (often with scrubs and milks) to be reused. Often bearing the faded marks of past manuscripts, this ‘new’ skin is used to communicate something fresh and powerful. It is an apt metaphor for the changes—and reinvention—that comes with menopause.

The process is as vital as the image.

Rather than using light and lens, the palimpsest body is revealed through chemistry. Created on secondhand photo paper, the resulting figure is a modern storyteller: an ancient female archetype rewritten for the modern age—the Neo-Neolithic Woman.

Laid naked, she is created in full light using the creams, hormones, masks, exfoliators, pain gels, hair removers, and oils that sustain and maintain the middle-aged woman. Colours emerge from black and white as she is delicately danced between developer, fixer, and water to create a unique picture-puzzle that is primally prehistoric and powerfully futuristic. She has reclaimed the domestic space of bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen to make them her studio and stage. Her existence is an act of rebellion, reflecting the stressful juggling act of work, home, and family that disproportionately falls to women. 

As technology and artificial intelligence rapidly intervene in every aspect of modern life, she is hand-made and unreplicable—every ‘cell’ uniquely borne of chemistry, temperature, time, and movement.  

Neo Neolithic Woman 1

Full body chemigrams on 12 (30x40 cm) panels made on expired black-and-white Kentmere RC lustre photo paper (30x40cm), Ilford developer and fixer.

FIRE WOMAN

Chemigram made on 8 (30x40cm) panels of expired Ilford warmtone black-and-white lustre photo paper. Made with E45 moisturiser, collagen day cream, collagen night cream, liquid collagen, massage oil, Voltarol, dried milk paste, shaving cream, body cleanser, hair removal cream, hand cream, red lipstick, red lip gloss, Ilford developer and fixer.

I Am volcano

Chemigram made on 8 (30x40cm) panels of expired Ilford warmtone black-and-white lustre photo paper. Made with E45 moisturiser, massage oil, exfoliating body scrub, Voltarol, hand cream, hair masque, argan oil, Ilford developer and fixer.

Diptychs

The dichotomy of menopause.

Tits Up... "It's all gone tits up!"..." "Keep your tits up!"

Oh, the Cheek! ...Proudly shameless, nakedly herself.