Self portrait: If I started lying about it, there would be nothing that was beautiful or true.

2024

Intaglio etching, linocut, graphite and embossings on paper

841 x 591mm

An autobiographical work exploring the relationship between truth, concealment, and self-representation. The title is drawn from Vanessa Diffenbaugh’s The Language of Flowers, a novel centred on the Victorian language of flowers, in which flowers were used as coded expressions to conceal and reveal meanings.

Drawing from this tradition of floral symbolism, the work considers how personal experiences is communicated indirectly through the use of images, symbols, and fragments of memory; when they are difficult to articulate directly.