Birgitta Hosea

Birgitta Hosea traces the actions of care, repair and mending through mark-making. Her work captures the invisibility of emotional labour — the snatched moments between hospital visits, phone calls with care workers and family — and transforms the ephemeral evidence of everyday cleaning and tending into lasting surfaces. Scoured I–XVI uses a metal pan scrubber with bleach to scrub holes through layers of inked paper, preserving the marks left behind by repetitive cleaning. Its companion piece, Darned I–XVI, stitches the fragile, scoured and torn surfaces back together again. Together the two panels hold the full arc of caregiving — the wearing away, and the putting back.