Shirley Archibald is a multi-disciplinary artist encompassing painting, assemblage and performance. Recent work explores hiding, visibility and celebrating difference as a queer woman. She draws on her personal experience and the witch icon of the middle ages as a parallel. Themes of agency, growth and uncovering are investigated with a fusing of the ancient and modern.

Shirley uses discarded objects to construct uniquely shaped canvas stretchers that resemble hybrid human forms.  The canvas stretchers are intended to symbolise the system and the body and these irregular forms represent non-conforming, autonomous bodies.

Her work has a DIY punk aesthetic and is influenced by dancers such as DV8 Physical Theatre and Michael Clark, whose work breaks new ground in unconventional ways. She works intuitively, embracing experimentation. 

Recent work, ‘Figure Holding History’ suggests the female figure, fashioned from detritus, dirty and ragged but nonetheless defiant. There are hidden pockets and folds within the canvas, painted with mud and teat-like markings intending to symbolise visibility as a queer woman yet also refer to the ‘witch finders’ invasive examinations of witches. This work looks back at historical injustices but celebrates the collapse of heteronormative structures towards a better future.

BA Honours in Fine Art Liverpool School of Art and Design 1987-1990

MA Fine Art University of Brighton 2021-2023