A story on top of a story, The Devil Dances in Me rewrites and reclaims old narratives inscribed on woman’s sexuality — shame, desire, defiance — across five movements, charting the shift from oppression to self‑possession.

Mixed media with spoken word

The Devil Dances in Me uses pages from Madame Bovary as a base, layering narratives to rewrite a 19th-century tale of constraint, longing and punishment. Over the top of 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.

Where the literary original offers inevitability, the modern narrative claims agency: the right to choose, to change, to become.

The five visual movements trace the journey from oppression to self-possession, culminating in the power to change our own stories. —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.

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 used:

• Old book pages & photocopies collage
• Acrylic paint
• Pen and ink, stamps, pencil
• Pastel

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The inspiration for the characters that are central to these pieces originated from photos of blobs on the wall at the White Bay Power Station in Sydney. These images show the original image and the character developed from them.