Metamorphoses are drawings from an installation consisting of a series of drawings in charcoal and ink. Each depicts a seated female nude, the face replaced by a skull. This grinning mask both conceals the gaze of the subject, effectively blinding them and rendering them powerless and objectified, and renders the spectator voyeuristic. This intensifies the experience of observing the piece, directly engaging the viewer in a semi-eroticised discourse with fear, death and the unknowable.

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The emaciated and deformed bodies explore the artist’s relationship with body dysmorphia and eating disorders, as well as the societal response to this, which is often inappropriately positive as a response to self-harming behaviour. The drawings were completed during a period with intense and worsening symptoms of bulimia, significant weight loss and concomitant problems with skin, hair and teeth, the installation as a whole examining the shifting idealisation of an unhealthy body image.

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Each overtly sexualised character is simultaneously alluring and repellent, with bulges, lumps and deformities appearing randomly on each detailed examination of the same subject, metamorphosing from enticing to menacing.

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The pieces were pinned to the wall with blu-tack, to emphasise the bad taste of the subject matter and as a revolt against the exclusivity of the art world, with its blank, white settings and middle class aspirations. This rejection of conventional display techniques also reflects the societal constraints constructed around unhealthy lifestyle choices and subject matter, the images causing the purportedly liberal and enlightened audience to turn away, sickened, from the raw ugliness of mental illness and physical deformity presented as erotica.

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The studies are an exploration of the ideal body image, captured and presented to the judgemental (male) gaze, trapped by drawing. The naked metamorphoses are powerless to resist scrutiny, but close examination leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.

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'Metamorphoses' was exhibited at the Chrysalis Exhibition, which formed part of Plymouth Art Weekender 2016.