Name: Helen Jones, aka Elluse

Title: Family, 2017

Medium: Acrylic Paint, Beads and Cotten

I created this initially as I was going through a ‘blip’ in the direction of my art. I thought of stopping doing art for myself and started to think commercially, so I decided to do a pink girlie piece for some well-off teenagers in Cheshire.

As I sat down to start this mission, my direction changed, and I couldn’t do what I had set out to do; becoming commercial was pushed to the side. The pink girlie style was a subject I could work on and tackle some anxieties. Such as: what’s it like to be a woman in the UK, with the pressures placed on us from an early age. Such as to conform, look pretty, be kind, have a family and care for others.

I needed to do art to get out of my deep anxieties, and bizarrely by choosing a pink girlie style that I had thrown onto a canvas in anger. I could see an outlet to express some painful feelings. This pressure almost limits you from discovering who you could be.