Ancestor Paintings
“I genuinely believe most of our human problems would disappear if we truly remembered our connection to the Living Earth, and our bodies are the key.”
If we go back far enough, all people alive today share one common female ancestor, Mitochondrial Eve. What if we had access to all these people, their love, their knowledge, their help, through our own bodies? They suggest a connection between our human experience and that of The Earth as a living being.
In The Garden Of My Body (Dancing With My Ancestors)
acrylic paint, tissue paper, silver leaf and glaze on canvas
60.5 x 76 x 2 cm
2024
£2,300
If our ancestors live in our DNA, we carry them with us. Plant knowledge, foraging, gardening, gathering and preserving has been passed down through my female line until it became almost instinct. I am lucky enough to live at a time where I can be active out in the world, but how many of my female ancestors were confined to the walled garden? Their dreams and desires lying dormant like wildflower seeds until they found the right conditions for germination. My own ambition encompasses theirs, my actions in the world speaking for them. My body is the garden where we dance together.
In The Earth Of My Body (Talking With The Ancestors)
acrylic paint on canvas
60.5 x 76 x 2 cm
2025
£2,300
The deep earth where all life begins. The dots represent both the life force and the tiny microbial beings that carry the spark from life to decomposition after death and back to life again.
In The Earth of My Body (Underground River)
acrylic paint and tissue paper on reclaimed canvas
91 × 60 × 3.5 cm
2026
£2,730
This painting relates to a poem I wrote in 2020 called River (My Mother’s Mother’s Mother). The tissue paper ‘river’ represents a stream of consciousness that lives at a deeper level.
In The Earth of My Body (Schooling & Shoaling /Underground Gathering)
acrylic paint and tissue paper on canvas
91 × 60 × 3.5 cm
2026
£2,730
This painting relates to a poem I wrote in 2020 called River (My Mother’s Mother’s Mother). The tissue paper ‘river’ represents a stream of consciousness that lives at a deeper level.
In The Earth Of My Body (Moon In The Earth)
acrylic paint, acrylic pens, tissue paper and rhinestones on reclaimed canvas
80 × 30 × 1.5 cm
2026
£1,320
The moon carries with it the idea of seasons, of communication and of dreaming.
Night In The Meadow Of My Body
acrylic paint, acrylic pens, gold leaf, and turquiose cabochons on canvas71 x 100.5 x 2.5 cm
2025
£1,140
At night the world lights up with magic and things come alive that seemed static in the daylight. Here the ancestors meet together in the middle of the field.
In The Mother Of My Body (Poetry)
acrylic paint, acrylic pen, shells, glass beads, tigers eye, silver wire and glaze on canvas
80 × 60 × 1.5 cm
2025
£2,400
I painted this after my mother died, an homage to her becoming my most recent ancestor. The shell sections came from one of her necklaces from when I was a child. I always choose deep pink as a background to signify the field of love.