My degree show project is pertaining to the subject of rape. Rape has existed in the human world since the beginning of civilisation and it has always been idealised and sanitised in art and literature. The desire to portray this destructive act has been a deep human impulse since ancient times, and it continues to thrive in our modern age. I am currently using the epic poems in Ovid’s Metamorphoses to explore the imagery of animals and hunting in ancient Greek myths which illustrate the barbaric pursuit of men for women, abduction and rape, and the metamorphosis of the female into an animal.

The series all come under the same title, like the previous series, taken from the idylls of Theocritus, symbolising the victory of the pursuer and the conquest of the prey. This work explores the rewards of a habitual hunt, creatures which men have hunted for centuries, hung captured like a prize but in reality they are allegories of man’s ‘longing’ for a gentle maiden. The hunter is absent, however the void in which they hang is a reminder of this incessant act of violence committed by men and the permanent state of fear in which all women live.

The traditional materials of the series and most importantly the gesso and oil paint would have typically been used by the Old Masters to picture the subjects of heroic rape scenes, such as ‘The Rape of the Sabine Women.’ However as a young woman I am exposing this material and the systematic conventional beliefs which accompany it, to make uncompromised statements about the ageless dominance of man and transform this imagery into modern day feminist critique.