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 Seascape Original: £320 35.7 x 45.5cm Acrylics on canvas textured board I get distressed by cuddly-looking mermaids. And also by the kind that look like Page 3 Girls with fish tails. It's sad that the idea of mermaids has been sanitised, or pummelled into a supposedly more desirable shape. In the olden days mermaids used to get more respect. They were wild, untamable creatures who terrified sailors because they could cause storms and shipwrecks. Like mermaids, women can be wild, independent, unashamedly physical, even dangerous, but half the time we find ourselves acting like some seaside ornament, mirror in hand, trying to look cute. The mermaids in Seascape are supposed to suggest an alternative femininity, which is why they're more human than fishy – in fact you can't definitely say that they're not ordinary women. The moon's there to hint at another connection, which is that women and mermaids both live their lives according to lunar rhythms. As women's bodies echo the moon's rhythms, so presumably the moon's control of the tides shapes the lives of mermaids. Incidentally, the mermaids in Seascape are so modestly covered up not because I have a problem with nudity, but because I didn't want to risk them being ogled at, which would be contrary to everything they stand for.
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