Gala Jane

I am interested in taking back the space stolen by the patriarchy. It’s time to be big, bold and unapologetic. No more being minimised and silenced in fear for my safety whilst I continue to navigate the world in a femme body.

In this work, my body and lived experience becomes the protagonist performing a series of characters captured with moving image and photography. These characters perform only for themselves, eccentric, exaggerated and completely unfiltered. Bella is reminiscent of a “trad wife” in cooking demonstrations - her role, destroying fruit for pleasure. Joined by Bellanana, who is adorned in a banana costume, and with absolute disgust, forces herself to cannibalistically eat a banana. Despite radiating glam, their costumes, odd facial expressions and cheeky attitudes disrupt traditional portraiture and bring humour and absurdity to the work.

They are performance works but in a way, they are self-portraits - fragments of myself exaggerated through play. These characters are bizarre, over the top, take up space and definitely deserve to be there.