Rosebound, the birds sing and there is no more; emerged from a deeply personal journey following my dad's death. I began gilding rose thorns, finding solace in their endurance and beauty. Each thorn represented a day we shared being alive -  16,726.

This meditative process allowed me to navigate the complex emotions of loss and healing. The act of gilding each thorn became a ritual, a slow unfolding of grief and a way to mark both presence and absence.

The thorns, accumulated over time, form the heart of a layered piece, where objects, images, and actions intersect to explore memory, legacy, and the passage of time.

At its core are two fabrics, woven on a homemade loom. The first, red thread cloth, is marked by 16,726 gilded thorns at each crossing, tracing a bloodline, ancestry, and restoration. The second, black thread woven with plain thorns, speaks to the universal experience of loss and shared human memory. The loom, restrung with red thread, stands as a living trace of the process, recording both the days counted and those beyond.

Large charcoal drawings of rose hedgerows anchor the space, their tangled forms evoking the complexity of emotion and feeling. Alongside these, two armchairs from my dad’s workshop, one reupholstered in raw canvas, symbolizing new beginnings, the other restored with kintsugi principles, celebrating imperfection and resilience, invite visitors to sit, reflect, and engage.

Jars filled with rose thorns and notepads, one with notes written in thorns, the other collecting gilded traces of adhesive, offer intimate interactions, documenting the quiet accumulation of time and labour.

Together, these elements create an experience that is both personal and universal, a meditation on what remains and what is lost.