2017-2019 REBIRTH
CW: Artworks during this period feature reference to mental health and transgender lived experience.
Born in 1980, it took tjb almost 20 years to unpack the indoctrination forced upon her during the formative years of her life informed and conditioned through a law in the UK titled, Section 28.
Section 28 destroyed the lives of many young queers as it operated through the UK from 1988 until its final repeal in England during 2003. This period of time represented her entire primary, secondary, college and undergraduate education. It would dictate that State education should ensure that anything outside of heteronormativity was unacceptable by removing all reference to queer lives from the curriculum and withdrawing all pastoral support (in schools) for the mental health and wellbeing of young people in relation to LGBTQIA+ experiences .
For tjb this meant her own lived experience at this time dictated that anything other than cis male and female binary relationships didn’t exist in her primary, secondary or college curriculum. And the first meaningful representation only occurred at undergraduate level as the legacy of this law finally came to a close.
As a queer youth from a low-income, single parent cis-normative family, there was no one in the school system to educate her that difference was acceptable and importantly her cis hetero peers wouldn’t learn acceptance either!
It took tjb 20 years to unpack this assault of indoctrination. Almost dying prior to finally accepting who she was and it was only during moments of support and therapy in the years prior to her 40th birthday that she finally became comfortable with her identity.
Initially coming out as non-binary in 2019, using the pronouns xe/xem/xyrs until June 2024, her solo artwork during the period of 2017 to 2019 moved away from the explicit body-based actions of her previous period, granting her the opportunity to understand where she had come from, reframing her own archive through new eyes, re-examining her previous obsessions with the perception of being and a multiplicity of self/s afresh and re/embracing queer phenomenology through the evolution of her practice, research and authentic identity.
Born in 1980, it took tjb almost 20 years to unpack the indoctrination forced upon her during the formative years of her life informed and conditioned through a law in the UK titled, Section 28.
Section 28 destroyed the lives of many young queers as it operated through the UK from 1988 until its final repeal in England during 2003. This period of time represented her entire primary, secondary, college and undergraduate education. It would dictate that State education should ensure that anything outside of heteronormativity was unacceptable by removing all reference to queer lives from the curriculum and withdrawing all pastoral support (in schools) for the mental health and wellbeing of young people in relation to LGBTQIA+ experiences .
For tjb this meant her own lived experience at this time dictated that anything other than cis male and female binary relationships didn’t exist in her primary, secondary or college curriculum. And the first meaningful representation only occurred at undergraduate level as the legacy of this law finally came to a close.
As a queer youth from a low-income, single parent cis-normative family, there was no one in the school system to educate her that difference was acceptable and importantly her cis hetero peers wouldn’t learn acceptance either!
It took tjb 20 years to unpack this assault of indoctrination. Almost dying prior to finally accepting who she was and it was only during moments of support and therapy in the years prior to her 40th birthday that she finally became comfortable with her identity.
Initially coming out as non-binary in 2019, using the pronouns xe/xem/xyrs until June 2024, her solo artwork during the period of 2017 to 2019 moved away from the explicit body-based actions of her previous period, granting her the opportunity to understand where she had come from, reframing her own archive through new eyes, re-examining her previous obsessions with the perception of being and a multiplicity of self/s afresh and re/embracing queer phenomenology through the evolution of her practice, research and authentic identity.
CHTHONIC
(sculpture)
The final remains of the materials from the CHTHONIC duration action were held in this installation that spectators were invited to visited and remove sections of to continue the journey of the bones. The artwork was a de/constructive process; sculpting the physical Being, intangible Self/s and the foundation of a space that would hold a monochromatic cross of bones. The intersections of the cross mapped path/s of psychogenesis between purgatory and peacefulness. This structure represented the boundaries and fluid borders - corporeal and geographic - that moved through the CHTHONIC action the traversed both external/internal environments over its 17 hour durational construction. What remained was a rebirth through fire, symbolic of the artist’s coming out as an openly queer nonbinary trans dis/abled person.
CHTHONIC
Material: 500x Cow Knuckle Bones, 3km Jute Twine, 50l Liquid Latex, 8l Paraffin, Hessian Sackcloth, Sage Smudge Sticks, IKAROS signal flare, ENOLAGAYE red smoke cover device
Action: Durational performance from 4:43am to 9:21pm (16 hours 38mins). A Sunrise cleansing pyre of 500 knuckle bones is ignited in a forgotten landscape between industry, nature and regeneration. The fired bones and ash are walked one to a new location. A 22km journey between two set points. The riverside is cleaned, leaving no trace. The bones are bound and sealed; processed into a sculpture of healing. The sculpture installation is left in situ and visitors are invited to provide a new home to the bound knuckles.
Context: On the 21st June 2019 at 4:43am the sun rose on the Summer Solstice, commencing at 51.5050185, 0.0777211 on the edge of the Thames. This artwork was a de/constructive process; sculpting the physical Being, intangible Self/s and the foundation of a space that would hold a monochromatic cross of bones. This was not a crucifix but rather mapped path/s of psychogenesis; an intersection held somewhere between purgatory and peacefulness. Surveying boundaries and fluid borders - corporeal and geographic - moving through “CHTHONIC’s” external/internal environments, acknowledging the reciprocal intervention that occurs between both. Moving beyond a cis-self, this was a rebirth through fire as an openly queer nonbinary trans dis/abled person.
2019
Raw Labs - Bow Arts Trust, London
London Festival of Architecture
Photography - Hellen Burrough
2019
Raw Labs - Bow Arts Trust, London
London Festival of Architecture
Photography - Hellen Burrough
Verletzlichkeit
The Verletzlichkeit Series captures gestural actions on paper as the artist considers the forms of body and environment where external pressures become evident upon our physical and psychological experience/s of the world. Chalk pen on black paper were used while in residency at the Sidney Nolan Trust in 2017 to create a series of images, two of which are displayed below. These works, part of the Lines in the Landscape residency, would be used in the development of tjb’s CHTHONIC.
Verletzlichkeit No.1 is the only image developed into a 16 x 20” Giclée print. Produced on Hahnemüle Pearl which enhances black and white images with exacting detail. The paper is resin coated with a fibrous feel creating an orange peel-like texture and satin finish. Edition of 4.
Verletzlichkeit No.1 is the only image from the series tjb selected to develop into a 16 x 20” Giclée print. Produced on Hahnemüle Pearl which enhances black and white images with exacting detail. The paper is resin coated with a fibrous feel creating an orange peel-like texture and satin finish. Edition of 2. Only the original is signed.