Using ideas of the body from classicism, bodies missing limbs, limbs missing bodies - which make up display rooms in the Met, Louvre and British Museum. These 21st century souls are evocative of war zones and psychological states, cadavers with dissociative disorders and the body dysmorphia of our automated society. My subjects are professional bodybuilders, a community that is highly niche and closed. Establishing myself within this community, performative and undercover, is now eight months old. Alongside the studio making, I train five days a week under the tuition of an IFBB champion, whom I have digitally scanned via photogrammetry and printed via CAD.

I am the first official ‘Artist in Residence’ at a Leisure Trust community gym in Newham, which was established in 2013 as part of the Olympic legacy. The residency seeks to expand the real world impact of my interest in this field. This project covers the wide scope of fitness and wellbeing; from the P.T Barnum feel of bodybuilding competitions to the realities of the NHS health bill.

People in the UK are 20% less active now compared to the 1960s, this is set to be 35% by 2030. The fitness industry continues to grow, as does the male desire for objectification equality. Across the UK, record numbers of males are taking steroids and altering their bodies to meet Instagram-ideals. For women, the role of muscle and the potential to be stronger than men is a challenge to traditional ideas of beauty and gender.