Bio

My artistic practice spans drawing, painting, sculpture, mask-making, video and performance. This year has given birth to a bizarre family of masked creatures, that I use to investigate human action and motivation. The world I am building draws equally from folk vernacular, art history, and contemporary influences. Recently I have become interested in scapegoat rituals stemming from research into William Holman Hunt’s painting ‘The Scapegoat’. I have based a body of work around my own fictionalised narrative collaged together from biblical and Ancient Greek accounts of scapegoats. I am interested in what historical stories, rituals and folklore can tell us about 'humanness' and relate to contemporary society.

As a response to current restrictions preventing us from showing work in conventional spaces, I made characters from my paintings get up and walk around, in the mask-making aspect of my practice. Documentation of the narrative performances can be seen in the three video instalments of ‘Scapegoat’. The connection between my subject matter and materiality investigates a state of being ‘cast out’ often using found objects alongside ‘found stories’. I think of myself as a magpie picking up fragments of narrative and bits of old wood off the street and bringing them back to my practice.

Scapegoat 2
Scapegoat 2

The narrative of 'Scapegoat 2' is collaged together from the fragmented accounts of scapegoat rituals in Ancient Greece documented in the 6th century BC Iambic poet Hipponax's writing. The scapegoat, in some towns, would be treated like a king and fed with barley cake, figs and cheese, in order to add more value to the sacrifice. 

A figure wearing a papier-mache goats mask emerging from the water at the beach.
Scapegoat 2 - Photograph by Madeleine Wood
Three figures with pink papier-mâché masks stood around a table of cardboard food on the beach.
Scapegoat 2 - Photograph by Madeleine Wood
Three figures with pink papier-mâché masks walking on the beach.
Scapegoat 2 - Photograph by Madeleine Wood
Three figures in papier-mâché masks walking across the concrete causeway at Cramond beach
Scapegoat 2 - Photograph by Madeleine Wood
Four figures in papier-mache masks stood around a table of cardboard food on the beach
Scapegoat 2 - Photograph by Madeleine Wood
8 sketchbook pages planning 'Scapegoat 2.0'
Sketchbook pages
Domestic degree show video instillation of 'Scapegoat 2'
Four columns projected onto curtains with figures wearing papier-mache masks and eating cardboard food.
Photograph of domestic degree show video instillation of 'Scapegoat 2'
Painting of a man with a goats head smoking a cigarette.
'Smokey Goat' Acrylic and emulsion paint on paper 59.4 x 42.0 cm
Painting of a goat with a human hand smoking a cigarette.
'Smokey Goat 2' Acrylic and emulsion paint on found wood 53 x 32 cm
Painting on found wood of a naked figure sat next to a fire holding a fig branch with 'The melody of the wild fig' written in pen
'Melody of the Wild Fig' Emulsion and acrylic paint, air-dry clay and glitter on found wood 61 x 38 cm
Clip from video 'Scapegoat 1'
Scapegoat 1

'Scapegoat 1' was a play, tucked away in the Pentland Hills depicting a goats banishment from a village, to walk the wilderness forever.  The villagers, propell him forward with their incantation:

Flee from my heart, contriver of ill,

Flee very quickly,

Flee from my limbs,

Snake! Fire! Evil Doer!

Flee to the depths of the wilderness.  

 

Two photographs of the artist reading from a book in the woods and an open notebook filled with written text
Day of 'Scapegoat 1' performance
Figure in a pink dress and papier-mache mask stood in the woods.
Scapegoat 1 - Photograph by Madeleine Wood
Figures in papier-mache masks walking through a field.
Still from video 'Scapegoat 1'
Six figures in Papier-mach masks walking over a hill.
Still from video 'Scapegoat 1'
Figure in a goat masks walking towards the sun.
Still from video 'Scapegoat 1'
Two figures in papier-mache masks in the woods.
Still from video 'Scapegoat 1'
Painting of a figure lactating into another figures mouth whilst they levitate.
'Levitation milk' Pen, pencil and acrylic paint on paper 59.4 x 42.0 cm
Cast Out

I collect marginal ‘things’ from the streets, skips and scrap yards. I often give the objects fictional backstories so that they fit into the world I am building; artefacts from both a real and imagined past. They interact with and are made alongside the narrative Scapegoat videos, as if they all exist within my own fabricated mythology.

A drawing of a goat mounded on a found rectangular piece of wood
Emulsion paint, pen and pollyfilla mounded on found wood 34 x 66 cm
Drawing of a bird mounted inside a found metal box.
'Birdbox' Acrylic and emulsion paint and pen on paper mounted inside found metal object 30 x 24 x 17 cm
Scapegoat 3

A narrative performance walk depicting a scapegoat's banishment from the city of Edinburgh to the wilderness (Arthurs Seat). Many thanks to Lorenzo Rangoni-Robertson for his performance as the scapegoat.

A figure wearing a papier-mâché goat costume sat on a bench looking at a hill of yellow flowers.
Scapegoat 3 - Photograph by Madeleine Wood
'Scapegoat 3' Video - Performance from Lorenzo Rangoni-Robertson
Figure dressed in papier-mache goat costume stood in front of a mural.
Scapegoat 3 - Photograph by Madeleine Wood
Figure in a papier-mache goat costume stood at traffic lights.
Scapegoat 3 - Photograph by Madeleine Wood
Figure in papier-mâché mask stood at a table of cardboard food on the beach.
Scapegoat 3 - Photograph by Madeleine Wood
Shadow of a goat on the road
Still from video 'Scapegoat 3'
figure dressed in papier-mache goat costume on the street.
Still from video 'Scapegoat 3'
figure in papier-mache goat costume on the street
Still from video 'Scapegoat 3'
A figure wearing apaier-mache goat costume next to a lamppost.
Still from video 'Scapegoat 3'
A broken worden bird box adorned with air-dry clay goats and pediment.
'Temple of the Golden Goat' Found wooden object and air-dry clay 31 x 33 x 38 cm
And finally...... 'Sun and Moon'
Sun and Moon - Performances by Olivia Byass- Smithies and Hannah Draper

Thank you to my tutors Joan Smith and Deirdre Macleod, actors involved in my videos and everyone who helped along the way:

Gemma Smith, Gabriel Levine Brislin, Maria Wrang-Rasmussen, Hannah Draper, Olivia Byass Smithies, Max Swift, Lorenzo Rangoni-Robertson, Madeline Wood

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Painting - BA (Hons)

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