Shona Wardrop

Based in Largs Scotland I am at the start of my career as an artist and I am in the process of developing my specific artistic voice having just graduated with a First in the BA (Hons) Contemporary Art Practice from the City of Glasgow College.

In the last two years I have been exploring, through my creative practice, my specific female voice, as an older disabled woman. My final year had been about exploring the silent and often invisible voices of women. Immersing myself in the muck and debris of making, I find myself deconstructing my female experiences and examining those biological and social forces that combine to create a woman’s persona. I then take materials and methods to reconstruct , to layer and to construct in paint, print, photo and textile a curated version. I am asking that we look closely at these surface presentations to see beyond the stereotypes so often associated with female aesthetics and engage with the real voices hidden in plain sight.

I make to think not think to make, this a deliberate reversal of my life long work. Moulded and forced to work within a patriarchal neo liberal system which demanded that as a lone parent I confined myself to reason, analysis and logic, to ensure continued employment as a lone parent. Freed from these constraints I am now able to without guilt or fear to make, make, make and then think, think, think. Through this I hope to make audible and visible female voice and form.

I aim to find serendipitous moments in the apparently random coupling of elements.. Contrasts of comfort and discomfort, known and unknown, still and moving all underpinned by the quiet yet insistent forces that act to contain and confine the female.