resilient women

2020: Resilient Women Travellers Series Two

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In reaction to COVID-19 restrictions, I escaped lock down as an armchair traveller, with a fascination for historical exploration of the Silk Road and its surrounds.  In particular, I focussed on the outsiders, those travellers who pushed the boundaries of societal and cultural expectation to forge their own paths. The Resilient Women Travellers Series Two presents six European travellers to Central Asia between 1860 and 1930:

  • Isabella Bird (1831-1904)
  • Mildred Cable (1878-1952)
  • Alexandra David-Neel (1868-1969)
  • Mary Gaunt (1861-1942)
  • Ella Maillart (1903-1997)
  • Janet Wulsin (1894-1963)

The faceless images and use of aged, abandoned books reflect the erosion of our memory of them over time. The text overlay encapsulates their amazing life stories. These women defied convention to live extraordinary lives of intrepid travel. 

Resilient Women- another view of Alexandra David-Neel

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This is another version of Alexandra David-Neel, based on a photograph of her outside her hermitage in the Himalayas.

# Resilient women 2018

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I have manipulated the paintings of Bird, Cable and David-Need to give the images a contemporary context, with a ‘headline’ that to me summarises their life story. For the viewer to ponder.

Resilient women series 2018

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This is the start of the new series for 2018, based around images of resilient women. These works are painted in magenta, to reflect the colour coding of the Penguin book series ‘Travel and Adventure’. From L to R they are based on:

  • Isabella Bird (1831-1904)
  • Alexandra David-Neel (1868-1969)
  • Mildred Cable (1878-1952)