The female figure has always been symbolic of fertility and regeneration, sexuality and eroticism. A woman’s form is usually depicted as either enigmatic and titillating or motherly and protective. Helen Joseph divorces the figure from its usual associations with beauty, femininity, maternity and sexuality to expose the vulnerability and dehumanization that results from the violence, both psychological and physical, of abuse.

Joseph’s charcoal images are stark and oversized. They give the impression of objectification, dehumanized figures in clichéd poses that, antithetically, express not the sensuality of the body, but the separation of the body from emotion.

The over-life-size figures are shown in sensuous positions in monochrome or bi-palette but the sensuality of these figures is cruelly mocked. The eyes of the figures do not meet the gaze of the spectator but, instead, seem unaware of any presence, almost dead. The bodies are shown locked inside an internal world, non-people, bound and tied up in a parallel reality of humiliation and shame. Broad blocks of colour imbue the canvas with a superficiality that belies the depth of the subject matter and creates a tension between the highly worked, erratic graphite strokes and the flat, emphatic colour imposed upon them. This layering of colour is representative of the constant trauma that abuse victims bear, a never-ending reminder of the baggage that endures even after the abuse has subsided.

The body is not meant to be beautiful in Joseph’s work. Her pictures seem emotionally fraught, disturbing, almost painful, pausing on the borderline of vulgarity to expose the subliminal effects of abuse including isolation, self-criticism and emotional imprisonment.

Joseph depicts the latter literally by wrapping, binding and sewing directly onto her forms to enhance the nightmarish representation of anguish. Tension is created by the vehemence of Helen’s strokes, the severity of her stark palette and is steadily built up by the addition of threads and binding, symbolizing the control that the abuser exerts on his victim and the constant undermining of her self-belief and confidence.

Helen Joseph works in multiple media. She is exhibiting drawings and paintings, as well as sculpture, digital prints and digital film. Her sculptures explore the three dimensional aspect of the female form and allow her to take her literal use of binding and tying onto another plane.

As a medium, film and digital prints bring the reality of experience into the foreground, but as a mere copy, pushing reality itself into the distance and almost forcing the spectator to stare at the images absorbing the emotional strain of the victim.

In reality, one would avert one’s eyes from the painfulness of the victim’s experience. Joseph’s film and her digital images allow the observer to be both fascinated by the fear and immense turmoil of the subject whilst concurrently empathizing with her. The use of sound and focus further enhances the drama of the experience.