'I Want To Be This Way Again' by Carys Reilly

‘I Want To Be This Way Again’ was a solo exhibition of works by Carys Reilly. Carys’ art practice is often informed by her lived experience and her training in Textiles. She uses a combination of sculpture and painting to critique gender roles and attitudes towards chronic illness and neurodivergence in women.
Her pieces were inspired by the processes involved in woven textiles: she uses fabric, thread, and repetitive imagery in minute scale in paintings and assemblages of found objects. Carys’ work explored how conditions including Endometriosis, Autism and ADHD are gendered, and how her experience of them intersects with societal ideals of womanhood.

Through her work she questions how the visual representation of Endometriosis contributes to stereotypes about the condition and alienates gender nonconforming women and LGBTQ+ patients.
She also looks at how Autism Spectrum Disorder and ADHD have in part shaped her personality and experience of womanhood, and aims to find a visual language to celebrate neurodivergent traits that doesn’t employ the childlike aesthetic commonly used in relation to these conditions on social media.