Artist: Jayne Wallett

The show is open from 10am to 4pm over the weekend of the 12th/13th and the following Sunday 20th of March, and from 12.30pm on Saturday the 19th.

‘I have always been interested in women as mythical beasts and monsters. Cultural history’s way of dealing with women of power and ambition has been to turn them into a sea monster, a gorgon or a frightening goddess of retribution.

For the Burning Down the House project I have produced a set of images of real, mythic and cultural ‘queens’, women perceived as unnatural or over-ambitious by the world of men: Boudicca, Medea and Antigone, as well as more recent transgressive women. Some of these women achieved greatness by the force of their anger, others by patiently using the narrow roles assigned to them by their culture and times. For one or two of them, it was their own death that brought their victory.

For me their defiance stands for all the women who have had to fight for the right to vote, to go to university, to work, to manage their own money and property, and to have control over their own bodies and health.

Today, for women everywhere, this fight still goes on.’