Innocence Project

Through drawing, painting, collage, collection, collation, and other medias - informed by researching the phenomenon of modern childhood, and how this manifests in visual terms - I challenge the ‘regular’ depiction of the child. My practice centres on the Western representation of children, established from the Post-Romantic period to present day.

Driven conceptually, not by a specific medium, the process of informing my own critical observations of current mainstream media, and analysing the social spheres I exist in, functions as the resource for dissemination of the complexities of child representation.

Artistic and popular media representations of children have the ability to reflect the social roles and attitudes towards children that are prevalent; in particular, the ways in which these portrayals represent ideals of ‘innocence’ and incorruptibility within society. With this stance in relation in to my practice, taking the view that these representations can be used for semiotic and manipulative purposes, e.g. as a marketing tool, I am particularly interested in their role as a source of adult entertainment or pleasure, especially humour; and perhaps more problematically, use as objects of sexual desire. This is exemplified by the critique and controversy of Sally Mann’s Immediate Family works. I endeavor to place my practice within the artistic and contextual discourse of Mann’s work and her contemporaries.

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May, 2018 (ongoing)