The Visitor, 2022
The London Open, Whitechapel Gallery
steel, jesmonite, ceramics
The Visitor took the medieval 'The Unicorn in Captivity' tapestry as a starting point to consider the transformation and endurance of the mythical creature. The unicorn is an unstable figure, part beast, part fantasy, a visitor from a mythic past. In medieval Europe, within the Christian Church, the unicorn became a metaphor for Christ. In pagan times the wild beast with its phallic horn could only be tamed by a virgin making it symbolic of purity or chastity. It was a popular subject for medieval tapestries, often depicted in captivity, hunted or tamed making it a symbol of control or suppression of the female body. This creature, loaded with patriarchal symbolism, is now symbolic of magic, innocence and heteronormative notions of femininity. In The Visitor, the unicorn embraces fragmentation, distortion and theatricality as carnivalesque and grotesque feminist strategies.