Stone Fruit is an exploration of the performative femininity intrinsic to my experience with chronic illness and its impact on my relationship with myself and others. Large-scale alternative process photographic prints of my own pelvic MRIs are displayed alongside contact prints of vintage garments, lingerie, and flower petals; blood vessels, reproductive organs, and tissue become akin to the folds of fabric, pencil lines of plant matter, and the boning of a corset. 

Thematic elements of each image are staged in a papier-mâché tableau, referencing classic vanitas still life paintings. From the picked-clean pelvic bone to a floral arrangement teeming with bugs, each paper sculpture is an uncanny facsimile of a real-life object. This is a false and flat, but appealing, reflection of the reality of inhabiting an inherently unreliable body. 

From afar, the illusion of normalcy is present. Take a closer look, however, and there is something lurking under the surface, a poisonous pit hidden in the flesh.

Prick
, 7” x 5”, selection of sixty-four silver gelatin photograms of rose petals.




Tend Your Wounds for Those Whore Are Watching.
, 11” x 30”, photogram.

Who Do You Say I Am?
, 11” x 30”, photogram.

© 2025 Claire Tomkiw