When I became very ill, dreams arrived with an intensity that made them feel like another lived world. These images grew from that dreamscape: fragments of earlier work, photographs taken through ordinary days, and collaged elements drawn together through memory, vulnerability and altered time.

Within many of the images, I am present—sitting vulnerable and naked—with Elvis, my beloved dog, beside me. We are partly concealed, held inside landscapes that hover between protection and exposure, presence and disappearance.

Washed Ashore developed during a residency at the Barracks in Jersey, through a daily encounter with the sea and the island’s rugged edges. A sculptural body lies beneath a sheet and appears to breathe: a human presence that is also an image, a remnant and a threshold.

The work continues the body first shown in Vienna during Descansos and later held at the centre of Rebirth. Against the stark coastline, it evokes the choice between life and death in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. The figure may have been washed back into living, or may be reaching its end. The work deliberately leaves both possibilities open.

Clay has always been central to my practice as a form of protection. In earlier photographic and print series it cocooned my subjects; over the past few years it has moved beyond the image to become a physical presence in its own right.

Making with clay became a healing ritual through illness. The Shield Maidens—porcelain forms with ceramic decals and encircling feathers—stand as protectors and return to the warrior sisterhood running throughout my work. Bowls hold armies of female figures, while the anatomical heart carries my response to Palestine and words interpreted from Saul Williams’ Not In My Name.