Mixed media with spoken word

The Devil Dances in Me is a layered narrative artwork built upon the bones of another story. Using pages from Madame Bovary as its substrate, the work rewrites and reclaims a 19th-century tale of constraint, longing, and punishment. Onto this foundation, a contemporary parallel unfolds: a modern woman confronting the inherited scripts of abuse, internalised misogyny, and the distortions they carve into body, gender, and identity.

Through five visual movements—The Torment of Living a Lie, Deliciously Erotic, Delightful Dream, Femme Fatale, La Petite Mort, and Destruction and Rebirth—the piece traces a transition from suppression to self-possession. Eroticism, shame, desire, and defiance collide as the protagonist steps into the power to rewrite her own ending. Where the literary original offers inevitability, the modern narrative claims agency: the right to choose, to change, to become.

Accompanied by a spoken word piece of the same name, the piece sits within a broader body of autobiographical practice exploring how personal histories are written on—and rewritten through—the body. Drawing on self-portraiture, ritual, and reclamation, the series examines the lifelong labour of unlearning inherited stories and growing a self that can finally speak in its own tongue.

Materials:

Old book pages, acrylic, pen and ink, pastel, collage, stamps, pencil.

Exhibited at

• Sep 2025: The 3rd Degree, Central Coast (printed banners)
• 2025: Displayed on the walls of Soundworks Arts Hub, Marrickville
• Oct 2024: Halloween exhibition, Tap Gallery, Surry Hills
• Sep 2024: The 3rd Degree, Central Coast (printed banners)