Soul Vessels - Beth Waite

About

Soul Vessels brings together ritual objects and artefacts which represent a reconnection and activation with a repressed feminine power. They exist within an ecosystem, a world, a history, a tribe, a utopia, a fiction; they are a physical and tangible negotiation between the physical and spiritual, a realm where the feminine soul lies. The sculptures act as both vessels for the feminine soul, as well as representations of the soul themselves, worthy of worship. 

Beth’s practice is rooted in her experience as a woman, linked to a larger shared experience of the feminine, its histories and its mysticism. Her work facilitates a connection between the physical and spiritual through feminist structures, ritual and performance. Fantastical narratives act as a vehicle to create a separate and fictional space, away from patriarchal violence and the male gaze, to wield the feminine energy that makes us ‘other’. Narratives within her practice may be utopian, historical, fictional or other worldly; the work does not exist in complete reality nor fantasy, but the in- between: the home of the feminine soul.

“Through making this work, I began to question when an object stops being a vessel for something, and starts to become the thing that it is holding. This is how I see these sculptures; as both vessels for the power of the feminine soul that lies dormant, as well as physical manifestations of this soul.”

Supported by the Berkofsky Arts Award, University of Leeds