Art with Purpose | Supporting TDAS & Survivors of Domestic Abuse

I am a conceptual and installation artist, currently studying Fine Art at Manchester Metropolitan University, whose work interrogates cultural constructions of power, gender, and discrimination, with a focus on sexism, misogyny, and the lived impact of language. Through ceramics, installation, painting, print, and film, I explore how words shape behaviours across generations, reinforcing structures of dominance and control in both public and domestic spaces.

After leaving a long corporate career, I witnessed first-hand how women are spoken to and the lasting psychological effects of everyday misogynistic language. This experience, combined with my discovery of text-based art and its capacity to provoke sustained attention, led me to develop a practice centred on the emotional and political weight of language.

My recent partnership with Trafford Domestic Abuse Services (TDAS) has deepened this work significantly. By meeting women in refuges and support groups, I have been able to gather real-world language tied to coercive control, emotional abuse, and everyday misogyny. These phrases are recontextualised onto domestic ceramic forms, echoing the environments where much of this harm takes place. The process of hand-building, imprinting, and firing these vessels allows the material itself to hold the history, fragility and resilience embedded in the words.

At the heart of my practice is the tension between uncomfortable truth and public accountability. Language often dismissed as “jokes” or “banter” becomes visible, embodied, and impossible to ignore. Drawing on feminist theorists such as Judith Butler and Sara Ahmed, alongside artists like Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger, I investigate how linguistic traditions continue to shape cultural norms and interpersonal dynamics.

Through re-presenting these words in clay and installation, the audience is asked to confront their own relationship to harmful language, how it is circulated, normalised, or challenged and to consider the behavioural and societal shifts that become possible when we choose to speak differently. My work aims to spark dialogue, illuminate social justice issues, and ultimately support a cultural shift toward greater equality and safer futures for women.

By supporting TDAS through donations, you help extend the impact of this work beyond the gallery, funding safe spaces, specialist support and practical resources that directly improve the lives of the women whose voices shape this project