ABOUT

The brief was simple: "We need to paint over some marks/holes in the pub's bathroom wall where the handdryer has been rehung. Can you do something a bit artsy while you're at it?"

I had free reign, apart from the paint type and colour requirements (to match the existing decor, and to meet sanitation standards).

What resulted is this mural installation in the cubicled (women’s) bathroom of the pub, exploring ideas of liminality, identity, place, gender, size, and what is considered (a) beautiful and (b) human. These sprang naturally from the nature of the space itself - the setting is a liminal one (a public restroom) and the venue is named for a liminal environment (the machair being a fragile but fertile habitat at the boundary of land and sea, where many of the folklore around selkies, a type of sealfolk commonly known throughout Scotland and Ireland, is set). I also worked the handdryer (our initial problematic object) into the artwork as a rock which the selkie could use to pull themselves out of the water, giving it a three dimensional aspect and a built in feeling to the piece, rather than trying to paint over or otherwise conceal it.

My main aim with the final piece was to allow anybody to see themselves in the painting and feel recognised and welcomed, but especially those people often excluded by mainstream western ideas of beauty and humanity.

Similar pieces have since been commissioned for the accessible bathroom and the urinals.