I’m Henrietta Gordon I use She/Her pronouns, I’m an interdisciplinary multimedia artist making work in response to performed/performative identities, from the perspective of my own gender presentation, and heritage, both ethnic and cultural.

Through story-telling and narrative-focused character work, I hold space and explore ideas of Presentational identity, lived experience and narratives around hierarchy, which helps drive my research and the development of my practice.

Currently, I am exploring the figure of the clown and clown suits as a means to distance performed gender and, instead, display and perform visual explorations of individual identities, such as my own as a Trans-Feminine person. I’ve been very keen on costuming and the idea of furthering my project by exploring play within costumes.

I am interested in the relationship between the costume and the wearer and how this may connect to a sense of authentic identity through performing for each other and for the self, bringing the audience in alongside them. I’ve recently begun looking through my childhood clothing as a new material to build from in terms of reflection and fabric, as well as other found materials, and printmaking my own textiles.

As for my next steps I’m keen to explore collaborative continuation on the work with my community, towards a visual outcome.

My work is primarily focused through a lens of character-driven storytelling, and performance. However, the character isn’t always present in the work itself and can be absent to enable a more personal connection for the audience with the space and the work.

One example is in two of my recent works; “A Moment in time” my ambient exploration of the relationship of a long explored character with feelings of isolation; and my “M-OTHER-LAND” series of screen prints, a series exploring the narrative of a fictional homeland for people othered, for their mixed ethnic heritage, to claim as a place of comfort and a safe place away from race tourism by the very method of colonial travel being torn from the final print.