*

On every trip I take to the beach I find myself searching for holey stones - or hag stones, as my M(other) would prefer. Also known as 

witch stones, 

adder stones, 

and eye stones, 

they are said to be windows to other realms, tools to see invisible creatures, and protection from bewitchment.

*

Melanie Klein's mid-20th century psychoanalytical studies into Object Relations Theory articulates how the core aspects of our intellectual and emotional development are a manifestation of our relations to objects, devised in early childhood. Reproducing objects through print, I contemplate how our relationships to objects serve as an allegory to the science of what is happening within us internally versus externally.

Physical processes such as lithography, screen and letterpress printmaking and bookmaking all lend a valuable insight into the tactile and technical significance of my work. The translation of object to image reminds us of an inability to touch, an inevitable distance. 

Language, too, is in essence intangible, untouchable, distant until it is recorded, visually or otherwise. Thinking on the tensions between internal versus external, thought versus action, desire versus reality I feel acutely aware of what cannot be touched. Referencing histories rich with the mystic, the supernatural, and the subconscious, the text in my work draws from personal narrative, often falsified with hyperbolic language - bridging gaps between the intangible and mythical experiences that play in our minds, and the lustreless external experience.