Semantics

Jane James

A faggot describes a standardised Medieval unit of measurement used for timber. Ironically, it represented a burden easy to bear. These are life sized representations of this unit. This body of work represents a very personal journey of expression. I do not presume to speak for anyone else in it - it is born of my lived experience alone.

These works honour those people in my life for whom coming out is a daily act of bravery and exposure. The works are a celebration of diversity within sameness, and stand as a reminder of the language we use, and the power it wields. Differentiated by their bindings, knots and timbers, these representations are unified by meaning and scale. They are constrained within a box and a constructed plane, but spill from this, breaking boundaries.

The narrative running through these works describes the loosening of constraints and shifting positions. There is wordplay in both the titles and the knots employed. They are conceived as a series of portraits.

They are hopeful, and if they are provocative, then let the provocation be towards dialogue and a dissolution of the binary.