To Have and To Hold

The print series “To Have and To Hold” (2015) explores domestic abuse, specifically non-violent coercive control. At the end of 2015, coercive control became recognised as a crime. Those working on the frontline were able to name and record abuse that was a pattern of behaviour, rather than incidents of violence. There was a growing understanding that domestic abuse is primarily about control and that this manifests through various ways such as financial control, digital surveillance, gaslighting and so on.

These prints explore the concept of holding and being held – the difference between feeling safe and being captive. In making these images I was thinking about coercive control and how it is integral to domestic abuse; someone exerting their power over another in an intimate relationship, and how this is very often invisible to the outsider. The use of birds to look at this theme enables a sideways look at a painful subject and I hope, stimulated dialogue on the subject of domestic abuse when the series was exhibited at The Brook Gallery, Exeter for ’16 Days of Action’ from 24 November – 10 December 2015.

The prints are made using drypoint and monoprint techniques.