Using laughter, my work explores ways of depicting women's internalised rules of conduct and my perception of their conflicted, ever-fluctuating response to external expectations. I'm interested in posing questions about the ways in which women are appraised within contemporary culture, influenced & policed and how this 'self- surveillance' circumscribes the repertoire of legitimate actions available to women. Many of the subjects of my paintings offer a riposte to self-consciousness, they often teeter on the verge of indulging in 'catastrophic' behaviour, or at times topple over. They may be inappropriate and immune to self-censure. When I paint images of women laughing, eating or interacting I am always cognizant of the fact that the most seemingly innocuous actions can be subversive, just as acts of transgression may be foregrounded by the prosaic. In making such work I have been inspired by writers such as Hélène Cixous, in particular her groundbreaking pieces such as 'Sorties' and ‘The Laugh of the Medusa’, in which she dissects the asymmetrical relationship between sex and power. When I paint images depicting female pleasure, excessiveness or impropriety I think of Cixous, her ideas and her stories. She shows us how resistance can take many forms.