Moral Injury – Bulls and Horses

Bulls and Horses, 137 x 102 cm, 2026, Oil on paper. 

£500 – SOLD

I can relate to the term Moral Injury but not in the way that nurses or soldiers or civil servants might be able to. But I can relate to the term from living under and therefore supporting a government and system that prioritises profit making over the health and safety of people, and peace. As well as having paid into a university that has shares in oil and arms.

Living in this way – not always in control of or knowing the effects of simple things like what you buy for your groceries for sure can create a kind of moral injury. 

My work tends to not be explicitly violent or completely dark – preferring to work with suggestions of hope at the least. This painting is the first in a series exploring communities failing vulnerable people as well as grief. 

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The story of the birth of the minotaur represents to me the hoops we jump through as women to perform femininity (cursed Pasiphae disguising herself as a cow in order to woo a bull) – and then this half man-half bull creature is born – the mutant and masculine minotaur. 

I came across Picasso drawings depicting the minotaur and bullfights. The dark curly head of the minotaur is seen mixing with humans and making advances on female characters. In the bullfights, the limbs of women, horses, and bulls start to mix together. The content is dark and often violent but the images are perfectly crisp line drawings. 

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My brother has renounced all art in the name of his religion. He sends me pictures though, photos of his day. One day he sends me a photograph of his washing drying. It looks so artistic that it makes me cry. beautiful – black clothes hanging on trees, the sand behind them pink and the sky a desert grey. 

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