Domestic abuse has always fascinated me in both its psychological patterns and how we, as a society, respond to it. With coercive control only becoming a criminal offence in Ireland in January 2019, I believe the concept of abuse beyond the physical, is one that we are still trying to grasp as a society due to the lack of understanding and knowledge around it.
My practice has a very personal component to it since I draw on my own experience of abuse in my childhood home. The artwork I create is not overtly about domestic abuse, but rather tells a story about an emotional state while in an abusive situation.
The abusive cycle of tension, incident, reconciliation, calm, and repeat is an ideology that I have created my work around. I am expressing the substantial adverse impact abuse has on usual day-to-day activities.
