The Waiting Room

The waiting room represents the last precious phase before death. A moment of clarity – reflecting on the puppeteers who once held power, the weight of regret, lessons now learnt, and the dreamy traces of passion, pleasure and connection.

Living on the estuary among submarines, frigates and fishing boats, twice each day I watch the tides reinvent the shoreline and the estuary birds reclaim the militarised landscape.

The swans that landed on my doorstep became my focus. First as detailed ink drawings, studies that informed the sculpture made from felt, the byproduct of military gaskets, bound and suspended on satin ribbon to form a swan delivering an egg, the beauty Helen of Troy. Leda, betrayed, and subjected to violence, closely guards the fruit of her encounter with Zeus, recognising his deception but defying his power.

The painting emerges from this slow, interconnected flow of thought and making. It imagines a dancer, Leda, taunting the suspended swan tethered to the harbour wall, immersed by tides, witness to the charged stillness of the end.

All artwork by Miranda Housden