Rebecca Tough

I work across disciplines focusing on print making, book arts and sculpture. Over the 30 years of my practice the work has been concerned with issues around the representation of women and their sexuality. Over time this has become less about looking out but more about looking in. The book works reflect my love of fairy tales and the stereotypes encountered within them, but they also provide the opportunity for me to create mischief and mayhem, and poke fun at the status quo.
My work has a personal narrative that is driven through experience half remembered, half made up creating a series of personal myths. Whilst the book form is something I am drawn to I also like to explore its possibilities as a self-supporting sculptural object. Recent work has included imagery printed on the insides of domestic cardboard boxes, which act as nets and mini-interiors.
This has generated as series of works entitled Psychodrama and Home. Although the images are made flat the boxes can be partially re-formed to explore the 3D spaces of my childhood. Other works from this series have been developed into outdoor installation pieces to exploit the interaction between the real of the present and the imagined spaces of the past.
Alongside my personal creative practice, I am also one half of a performance duo, Witty Kitches, which seeks to raise the profile of local female characters real or otherwise. We have been involved in creating workshops and visual displays for @outthereartsuk which has provided the opportunity to create a number of disposable costumes and give space for our various characters to emerge.