The waves came in like horses

‘The waves came in like horses’ traces an oscillatory transition into matrescence; the slow physiological and emotional entwinement of two beings that occurs within the pregnant body. Throughout pregnancy, cells are exchanged between the gestational parent and fetus via the placenta — a process known as microchimerism. This process involves a cellular-level melding of both parent and child, wherein ‘zombie cells’ from the fetus enter the parent’s body and leave traces in tissue and organ long after the baby has been born. The chimeric form is a blueprint for the artist’s image-bodies, translating her own maternal experience through a process of visual compositing. Each image is a synthesis of many — hacked up picture books, found negatives and new raws are drawn into hybrid imaginary spaces, at once intimate and distancing. These chimeras are not strictly figurative: they involve deftly sewn layers of phenomena and landscape. Undulations of ocean kelp ribbon across murky clouds of texture. Shimmering mists and blown-out pockets of light both highlight and obscure human forms: a nod to the departure of the singular self as well as to the new chimeric reality.