Artist
Frances Willoughby
Artist
Artist Bio
(b. 1996, Bristol, UK) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Bristol. Working across sculpture, textile, collage, and installation, Willoughby’s self-reflective works explore the metamorphosis of the human form, blending autobiography with invented narrative to confront personal trauma, family history, fear, and desire.
Willoughby’s works, bound by anxiety and discomfort, explore home as a place of both security and uncertainty. Obscure bodies are placed in unconventional domestic contexts, breathing new life and significance into them. By using contrasting materials, such as stuffed fabric, wire, and plaster to create intimate records of memory and the body, Willoughby merges opposites to reconcile differences. Recently, Willoughby’s preoccupation with fabric has prompted an exploration of the human body’s experiences of pleasure, pain, and inevitable decay; through the act of stitching and unpicking thread, she navigates painful, personal experiences.
Willoughby has exhibited both nationally and internationally, including the Mall Galleries, London, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, Helmut Gallery, Leipzig, The Phoenix Gallery, Athens, The Crypt, London, and Thought Foundation, Gateshead.
Artwork Description
Frances Willoughby’s sculptural installation The Kitchen Cupboard takes inspiration from the feminist space established in 1972 by Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro and captures the essence of how, for many women, the home can be a symbol of confinement. A pair of stockinged legs suggest a woman trapped in, and perhaps kicking her way out of, a kitchen cupboard. Through the work the artist delves into the lived experiences and challenges that shape a woman’s identity, explores the burdens associated with societal expectations, and creates a powerful commentary on the way gender often still defines the role people play within relationships and the domestic sphere.
