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- Holly Cuffe
Holly
Cuffe
Remainder
Through a multidisciplinary and introspective practice, Holly Cuffe creates work that navigates the complexities of vulnerability, resilience, and the unspoken performances embedded in womanhood. Her work draws from personal experience, reflecting on how societal expectations shape the female body and identity – particularly in domestic, professional, and intimate spaces.
Holly’s recent body of work explores the emotional residue of trauma, self-image, and the tension between how we feel and how we are seen. Through symbolic spaces like the bath, the bedroom, and the living room couch, she reflects on the quiet aftermath of personal experiences. A recurring motif throughout the work is a large, theatrical ruffle – handmade and worn – acting as an emblem of the burdens tied to self-presentation and societal expectation.
Cuffe’s practice is introspective, drawing from moments of unease and resilience. Rather than narrate directly, she uses painterly texture, photography, and subtle gestures to hint at a broader dialogue surrounding vulnerability and recovery. A key work within the series, a large-scale 2666 of the artist and her mother curled together on a couch, becomes a tender homage to care and mutual support. These intimate vignettes allow viewers to enter a private world shaped by memory, emotion, and encouraging reflection on the roles we perform and the spaces we turn to for comfort.
Expectations
This body of work explores the expectations placed on women in both domestic and professional spaces, and how these pressures shape identity. Drawing from personal experience working in hospitality and returning home to gendered patterns of labour, I noticed the invisible burdens women carry often expected to please, perform, and maintain appearances. These routines, though subtle, are emotionally exhausting and deeply ingrained.
The project began with the image of a kitchen sink, left full despite a spotless home, symbolizing the unspoken assumption that the mother would “take care of it.” This observation sparked a wider reflection on the cyclical nature of gendered roles and how, as a 22-year-old woman, I find myself enacting similar performances – in public and in private.
My bedroom, once a sanctuary, has become a symbolic stage. It holds the joy, pain, frustration, and pressure of self-presentation and perfection. Through paintings of vanity desks, kitchen sinks, and intimate scenes of my room, I explore the blurred boundaries between the personal and the performative.
This work invites viewers to confront the quiet, often overlooked spaces where expectations linger – and to reconsider the emotional labour that underpins everyday womanhood.