Esperanza
When the art canon attempts to reassure us that women were simply “left out,” as if by accident or oversight, I no longer nod politely. I no longer hold my breath, waiting for a footnote & excuse. I know it was never a simple omission. It was an act of violence—against memory, against ancestry, against the very force that birthed all human life.
They didn’t just erase women artists. They erased the womb. They erased the pulse, the place, the blood, the soil.
They erased the body as archive. They erased the circular timelines of Indigenous knowing, the mother who carved from clay, the daughter who drew on walls, the grandmother who whispered pattern into thread.
They erased the altar and called it a table,
They erased the scream and called it silence,
They erased the spiral and replaced it with a ladder,
where men
pulled other men
upward and
called it divine.
I will not sit quietly while the womb is erased from the gallery wall, the syllabus, the stone.
I carry her in my bones. I carry all of them. The unnamed makers, the exiled goddesses, the weavers and sculptors & singers who were never canonised but never stopped creating.
To erase the womb is to deny our shared origin. To erase the womb is to deny life itself—its mess, its materiality, its knowing. It is to pretend that the divine does not bleed.
The hand that birthed humanity is capable of mark-making, of mastery, of myth.
I stand in the line of women who made without permission. I place my work alongside theirs, not beneath. I move in rhythm with what the canon tried to silence. And I say this plainly, without metaphor: I will not sit quietly while my mother’s womb is erased.
Rock, Paper, Scissors
Material Protest and Embodied Refusal
I started with stone in mind.
I wanted to carve the words women are called when we say no.
When we do not smile.
When we do not comply.
When we unapologetically stay in our fucking lane.
Slut. Hoe. Bitch. Whore. Difficult.
These words come in whispers, in shouts, in laughter, in threats, in silence.
I wanted to give them weight—heavy, lasting weight.
I imagined them in stone. Relief carvings.
Rounded, soft-edged, rising from rock like scars on the flesh.
Hurting Words Made Visible.
But I was told no. Twice.
Instead, I was assigned to carve a lion’s head—an emblem of empire.
I was told: this is the template; this is the way; this is the only way.
The irony didn’t escape me. I intended to make a work about refusal.
And this educational institution…refused.
So I turned to what I had.
Figuratively, with my paper & pencil, I had stone and chisel. I carved.
Rock, Paper, Scissors.
Not just a title, but a method. A memory.
Rock—what I was denied.
Paper—what I had.
Scissors—what I used.
i, River
How many shadows does a body cast?
How many rivers carve the same valley, and is the valley ever the same?
i am a river, but i am not a single thing. i rage against stone, breaking it into sand with my patience. i am a whisper over pebbles, a mirror swallowing the sun. i am the violent hunger of the rapids, and the tender lips that smooth the edges of time. i am water, and i do not change for you.
Do not mistake the lull of my current for an invitation. Do not mistake my silence for an empty space for you to fill. i have carved my path long before you arrived, i have been many things, many bodies, and none of them belonged to you.
Yes, you may step into me, and for a moment, you will feel my embrace. You may tell yourself i exist for you, that my endless motion bends toward your hands, that my waves rise at your command. Lie to yourself, if it soothes you, but do not ask me to confirm your dream.
i am not here to hold you. i do not wrap myself around your feet for your comfort. i do not weave myself into your stories because you are not my centre. You are an interruption, a brief, flickering shape within me.
i see you, with your buckets, your dams, your desperate hands, trying to cage me in stone, trying to tell me where i must be.
You forget— time is my ally.
i seep.
i trickle.
i flood.
i outlast.
i wear away the world while you watch.
You name me gentle, and i swallow ships whole.
You name me destruction, and i carve gardens from deserts.
You name me woman, and expect me to be soft, to reflect, to be still.
But i do not wait for you. i do not rest for you. i do not break for you.
i have lived before you, and i will live beyond you. i am not yours to hold. You are a moment, and i am eternity.
And when your bones bleach beneath the sun, when the winds carry your dust away, i will still be moving.
i will carry no memory of your weight. i will flow, undiminished, unchanged by your absence.
Because i was never yours.
Because you were never mine.
Because i am the river, and the river does not stop.
We Win When We Work—The Sardines
From nine to five I worked today—
on fish in tins, a red array.
A painting born of ache and fight,
of blood and bones and morning light.
It started somewhere else, but swam
to sardines packed inside a can.
A reel, a film—me taking bites—
and stills of me in silver light.
At art school, someone tried to shame
my hot-sauced fish, called it a name.
First hurt, then rage, then power play:
I paint, I eat, I claim the day.
I swim in it—yes, fish pun here—
through memory, class, and shame sincere.
Cheap fuel for women stretched so thin—
single mom, MA, paint-stained skin.
The tins now frame this work I do,
their metal mouths hold something true.
That red I brushed recalls a time—
the roe, the gutting, fishing line.
A banner made of fishbone strands
hangs over her—she takes her stand.
The woman lies but not in loss—
the sardines mark what shame can’t cross.
I went to Hastings just to see
boats cleaning down before the sea.
They didn’t launch, but prepped with grace—
a quiet ode to working pace.
He’d called my lunch “disgusting, foul,”
but never saw the nets, the howl
of 4 a.m. and boots on floor—
the working class life, and so much more.
So Gratitude, that boat, goes in—
a sketch, a nod, a thanks within.
We win when we work, despite the noise.
We win with sardines, rage, and poise.
We Win When We Work — The Joy
I washed my face,
pulled back my hair,
stepped into the room,
ready to move,
to play,
to find the grotesque in the beautiful,
the beauty in the grotesque.
He sat across from me,
a latecomer,
a stranger,
but somehow,
he decided—
I will talk to her about her appearance.
“Whoa, you look really different today.”
Yesterday, I stood,
I spoke of monuments.
Today, I sat,
I prepared to create.
But all he saw was my hair,
my bare face,
the absence of decoration.
“The hair pulled back—no makeup.”
He couldn’t stop himself.
Entitlement is a runaway train.
Beside me, another voice—
“I had someone comment on my hair once…”
and I knew,
we knew,
this moment,
this silencing.
Because the upbringing of polite
crashes against
“Why are you being so fucking rude to me?”
And our words collapse in the wreckage.
I don’t know who put micro
in front of aggression.
Probably a bloke.
There’s nothing small about being made
to feel small.
And yet,
I said nothing.
I worked.
I moved.
I let my body speak
where words were choked back.
And as I worked,
he faded.
He disappeared into his own irrelevance.
We win when we work.
We win when we disregard.
We win when we create,
when we move forward,
when we take up space
without permission.