This Is Me Leaving

Artists Statement for “This is me leaving”

A female figure is pours from a vessel and carried by rushing water. Behind her, a floral pattern—once decorative—unravels into decay. This Is Me Leaving holds a central tension:is she released or held?

Drawing on the visual language of domestic decoration, this painting examines the ideals of femininity, care, and cultivation, embedded within middle-class South African homes. Referencing floral Biggie Best fabrics of the 80’s and 90’s the function is not simply floral decoration but rather considers how domestic space shapes cultural expectations of womanhood and belonging. A female figure emerges through a pounding stream released from a watering can—an object traditionally associated with nurture and cultivation. As floral forms dissolve into the painted surface and the stream is trapped in wood glue, the regulated act of care gives way to overflow, suggesting that the systems intended to cultivate identity can also become sites of containment. Rather than framing care and liberation as opposites, the work suggests how the very systems that “cultivate” identity can also confine it—and how excess, instability, and rupture may become necessary conditions for transformation. Leaving, here, is not a simple escape, but a shift in form: a movement through what once held her, toward self-definition.