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Stephanie is collaborating with post-menopausal women artists, exploring ageing, loss, and transformation. Together they are creating new work that challenges invisibility and celebrates mature women's creativity.
Ageing is an important process but it’s also very annoying. We are a group of like-minded women artists in The Forest who together have been exploring how best to embody the trouble with our bodies.
stephaniejamesarts.com
pl
Working on this project and taking part in the workshops has been a contemplative and at times nostalgic experience. It has made me stop and assess my life at this current stage of it, helping me draw some lines under the past and look forward positively to the future. It has made me thankful for some things and grieve over others. It also forced me to confront choices I have made and question if I would do things differently if given the chance. Could I have acted differently or behaved “ better “ in the past? The painting I am working on is called “Conversations”. If all the versions of me that have existed so far could meet up -all the different bodies - how would they interact? Would they comfort one another, give warnings ( especially about the vagaries of the menopause), tell one another that it will all be ok? Or just keep quiet and let them find out for themselves?
th
The Glitoris
The Glitoris is a sculptural work centred around a three-dimensional representation of the clitoris, drawing attention to the often overlooked complexities of female sexuality and desire. The piece explores how libido can diminish during menopause, highlighting both the physical and emotional dimensions of this transition. The accompanying creatures symbolise the uncertainty and misunderstanding that can surround female intimacy. They represent fumbling attempts to navigate a landscape that has historically been underexplored and frequently misunderstood, particularly by male partners. Their presence reflects the challenges of recognising and responding to the areas that contribute to pleasure and connection. Recent scientific research has revealed the remarkable complexity of the clitoris and its extensive nervous system, yet much about this extraordinary organ remains insufficiently understood. By placing the clitoris at the centre of the work, the sculpture invites viewers to consider the gaps in both scientific knowledge and cultural awareness surrounding female sexual health. The battery and jump leads act as metaphors for the stimulus or spark sometimes required to awaken desire and response. They reference the effort, energy, and reconnection that can be involved in maintaining intimacy, particularly during periods of hormonal change. Through a combination of humour, symbolism, and anatomical reference, The Glitoris encourages conversation about menopause, sexuality, and the continuing need for greater understanding of the female body.
jc
My work explores the textures and surfaces of ageing skin as a record of time, experience, and change. Through making plaster casts of tree bark, paper and muslin. I was particularly interested in the parallels between ageing skin and natural forms, especially tree bark, where layers, cracks, and weathered surfaces reveal a history of growth and endurance. Just as trees carry the marks of time through their changing textures, human skin records the passage of life through lines, creases, and imperfections. My painting brings together these observations, celebrating the marks of ageing as evidence of a life lived and suggesting that ageing, like nature, is a continuous process of transformation and renewal.
yj
The challenge of inhabiting an ageing body while witnessing the inevitable cycles of seasonal change continues to inform my work. My art has always been connected to my own existence: the whole unit of body, mind and emotion. Over the years I have undergone many medical procedures, several of which have been documented with the generous support of medical professionals. These works reveal an ongoing process of inquiry. Initially, the physical and corporeal body was my primary concern, prompting investigations of interior and exterior, containment and permeability. I explored boundaries and sought ways to loosen them: inner to outer, one to other. Confronting the possibility of annihilation, after previously feeling invincible, brought renewed attention to the whole unit. Alongside the body, I have incorporated dreams and imagination into my practice. I have also explored ideas through my involvement with Foreign Objekt, a posthumanist research group based in the United States. While aware of the broad field of posthuman possibilities—and recognising that my position continues to evolve through new knowledge and understanding—I currently describe myself as a “Now-Human”, exploring the notion of a centre, if such a thing exists. By referring to myself as a “Now-Human”, I am re-examining and updating the term “Human”, a category that has historically been contested and unequally applied. Across different periods and cultures, groups of people have been excluded from full recognition within dominant definitions of the human. While I am interested in the evolving ideas of posthumanism, I do not consider myself posthuman, despite medical interventions, prosthetic additions and surgical alterations. As a Now- Human, I embrace new technologies while maintaining a commitment to the equality and interconnectedness of all who inhabit our Earth. Living in the New Forest provides a continual and joyful reminder of this relationship.
Inside a pearl of million
layered brilliant faces
Stands one tiny grain of unexceptional grit
It does not shine, it does not glitter
It lies there naked unencumbered
In all its marvellous glory
Of nothing else
Just It
Stands one tiny grain of unexceptional grit
It does not shine, it does not glitter
It lies there naked unencumbered
In all its marvellous glory
Of nothing else
Just It
ic
The passing of time has heightened my awareness of ageing within the body, and the idea of fragmentation has become central to this project, particularly as I confront a diagnosis of breast cancer.
I was drawn, like a moth to a flame, to work with sugar paper: an everyday, organic material that came to symbolize both vulnerability and transformation. Through the process, I began to see parallels with ageing skin—its texture, fragility, and continual change over time.
Initially, the work was abstract. I enjoyed shaping the paper and exploring its surface qualities. But as time passed, it began to separate, tear, shrink, and detach from the surface beneath. It deteriorated. I became less in control of the material, yet it revealed more and more meaning.
During my treatment, the external part of a localization wire remained outside my breast, creating a visible connection between the hidden interior of the body and the outside world. This image stayed with me, becoming a powerful metaphor for exposure, fragility, and the revealing of what lies beneath the skin.
The changing sugar paper and the exposed wire became intertwined in my thinking. Together, they reflect fragmentation, vulnerability, and the unpredictable transformations of the body. This work became a fusion of art and lived experience, where material and meaning evolved side by side.
https://isilceramics.co.uk/
sc
Echoes of the Past
2026
This painting is about time and covers generations and the traces and layers they have left behind. It represents memories in old age. Using stencilling, I have created ghost-like figures from my family’s artwork. I have responded to my son’s joy of being young and seeing himself as a superhero with no hesitation. Having started this series of paintings I realize that I have referred to constructivism on which I have several books.
Acrylic spray paint, acrylic paint, collage
£600
js
The initial excitement of being asked to participate in this project quickly waned a little when I began to wonder how I, a photographer whose work was entirely about the natural world, would meet the challenge of producing something about female aging. I shy away from photographing people and so I headed to my large catalog of landscape images to try and find some inspiration.
I did have some ideas floating around. Wabi-sabi for example, the Japanese idea that invites us to accept and embrace the inevitability of aging and appreciate the beauty that can be found in imperfection and decay. So I sought images that evoked femininity, timelessness and beauty in things that are old.
Blue ice for example is very old ice. It has been compressed for millennia, squeezing the air out of it and turning it a fabulous blue. Roses wilt and decay with an elegance entirely different from the vitality of its youth, how female is that! Old trees whether as preserved skeletons such as those in Deadvlei, Namibia or the peeling bark of silver birch all clearly represent the ideas that I was looking for.
After much searching I settled on the concept of Skin. Old skin is so clearly identified with female aging. Much less attention is paid to aging male skin. And all flora, fauna and geology has skin or surface of some description. A common bond between humans and the rest of the planet.
The chosen examples, the rock, the rose, the ice and the tree all age at different rates. The rose will bloom, age and die within days or weeks. The Yew tree lives for decades. The steely blue heart of the Greenland ice takes hundreds of years to form while it takes millennia to polish the Arctic rock to a glow.
We talk about human aging but when does that start. Is there a single point in time when, like the rose we have achieved optimum strength and beauty and what we think of aging starts a day later. Its petals start to decay and betray its age like skin does for humans.
Or is it like the ice which is formed and evolves in its journey from glacier to the sea then slowly melts. While the temperature remains high enough it will always survive in changing forms all of which are beautiful. Once the temperature falls below zero it melts but the steely blue heart is the last part to die. The iceberg does not age in the way a rose does. It is formed, it evolves and then it dissolves. There is no obvious sign of ageing other than the creation its blue stripe.
Do we age like the rose or the ice?
The haikus are just another response to the images and the idea of aging. I like the restrictive 5-7-5 format which forces you to condense your thoughts to a concise expression or articulation of that response.
I chose a book format as it is of course ideal for telling a story and the concertina construction enables it to be displayed as well as read. I selected Khadi handmade rag paper for the book block. Its colour and texture complimenting the concept and images. The cover is a lokta paper whose distressed wax coating has a look and feel of old skin.
jf
On the shelf
An old set of drawers pulled apart, and one of the drawer faces used as a shelf - with no longer needed handles hanging in unfamiliar orientation; their purpose and meaning altered. This drawer front is the canvas that carries on it a part of my life – it showcases a collection of disparate “things”; things that have meaning to me.
It’s art - it’s my art – it’s ME!
Looking back into the life I have lived, I wonder at the experiences that have coloured my existence and the people that have made my years on this planet richer
– and it’s a lot!
I wonder if trying to make sense of it all – of pondering on what brought me to this moment - is a thing that needs my attention. My upbringing suggests it’s self-indulgent and yet here I find comfort in the questioning, searching and challenging of life from the perspective of a “woman of a certain age”.
What makes my female 60-year-old body a site of hormonal battle; of droughts; of subsidence and mental conundrums? There is of course no answer... it is what it is. There is no need to worry or to concern myself.
So: to everyone who reads this – we need to ask:
What makes some of us feel invisible when we are at our greatest?
What makes some women feel unheard when our voices are stronger than ever?
Our stories are full of wisdom and I for one am here to tell them, and to celebrate together the raw beauty of our existence in all its shapes and shades.
be
As an aging woman I have become increasingly aware of how I have to struggle with invisibility. I was born into and lived through misogynistic times: earning less, attempts made to sideline or ignore me. Like many women I have outlived most of my friends and family. I enjoy solitude, but I need social contact. So now I am doing an MA in Fine Art at Arts University Bournemouth. I have been a hand weaver, traditionally regarded as a female craft, for many years but am now extending myself into different practices. In my work I am exploring my own aging, which can be lonely, isolating, frightening, painful, sad, but also joyful, exciting and funny.