This is how she lives on

‘This is how she lives on’ is a study on grief after the death of my mother. At its core it is anchored in loss and trauma, but what has unfolded is a multiplicity into absence presence, motherhood, beauty, fragility and metamorphosis. Through drawing, sculpting and photographing my mother’s collection of lipsticks, ephemera and memories I have faced the layers of trauma and grief surrounding my mother’s death. I have purposely dug up my grief. Exhumed the bones of it and picked through its body, to sit with it, walk with it, talk to it, to be in the dark with it and ultimately to make art with it.

I have explored, examined, recorded and captured the lipstick’s essence through repeated multiple processes (In black and white, colour, digitally, 35mm, 120mm, 5x4, paper negatives, black and white photograms, colour photograms, drawing, sculpture and video). Working with and through the multiple processes has enabled me to be with my mother, to capture my mother’s absence and also her current presence.

Her DNA is on those lipsticks, part of her remains on them, her genetic code. They are a personally sculpted epitaph of extreme detail. I grew crystals onto her lipsticks and as the crystals grow, it is her that dictates how they grow. My mother’s DNA grows on into the crystals. In her afterlife this is how she grows on.

The body of work I have produced acts as a visual memory, a memorial and a tangible form to hold onto.