BIO
Kerry Fox graduated with an MA from York St John in 2019, her work concentrates upon her own journey as a mother and carer campaigning against bureaucracy and the fraught chaos. Combining art with activism she explores how the process of making and materials gives agency to strength, fragility and liminality. She incorporates officious documents, words, poetry and rags, the torn materials of a make do and mend scenario, recycling into rugs that become something other, the memories from the clothes once worn joined into the weave of documents either obscuring them or working alongside becoming a different craft, the craft of the artist, the activist, the ally, the mother carer. More recently she has been collaborating with fellow artist Beth Boyes on the research of women’s histories, myths and folklore and how their individual practices combine to explore the sense of self as women located within their landscapes.
ABOUT THE ART
We Once Were...
Installation inspired by the Old Wife’s Way
(Wife taken from Wif meaning woman)
Our individual art practices have concentrated on the perspective of the female voice, women as mothers, carers and or within transitional stages from maiden, mother, crone or the more modern day youth, mother, menopause. Through SelfScapes we interweave our lived experiences alongside that of our ancestors.
Our collaboration has focused upon how women have been connected to the landscape for shelter, passage and through the myths and folklore that embody the North Yorkshire Moors and how that resonates with our senses of self, our heritage, the traditions handed down (crafts), of strength, fragility, and eco feminism. Our work is a dedication to what we once were, are and will be, symbolised by staffs emerging from the ground, bound in the ancient ways of the wise women and local goddesses who were once connected closely within the landscape where women and the land were bound together and celebrated. The work was also inspired by our pilgrimage to the Old Wives Well at Stape, adorned with clooties as offerings for healing. The resulting installation has taken the threads of our research, wanderings and exploration of materials to produce a dedication not just to our SelfScape but to the past, present and future women of the landscape.