Varium et Mutabile . Semper Femina

Client: Gabrielle Reeves, artist

Project: Graphic design for poster & publication design for exhibition catalogue.

Created promotional visuals and catalogue for a solo show at Istanbul Concept Studio.

Goals/strategy: I drew from themes outlined in the artist statement for research, including elements of mythology, water motifs, a feminist perspective and dedication to the secondhand. The design aimed for a feeling of flexibility, freedom, and connection to natural elements reflected in the artwork.

The design highlighted a single featured image chosen by the artist that encapsulated many of the exhibition themes. Small icons scattered throughout the catalogue paid tribute to antique frames favoured by the artist, reflecting a love of found material and desire to honour the practice of craft.

“‘Fickle and Ever Changing is Woman’ — comes from Virgil’s Aeneid, where the phrase likens women to the shifting nature of water. This exhibition reclaims this metaphor, reframing fluidity not as weakness but as strength — a source of adaptation, survival, and power.

The paintings and drawings explore women’s experiences across time, weaving together personal memory and collective history. Water, especially swimming, appears as both a symbol and literal act of empowerment — a reclamation of space, a metaphor for resilience, and a meditative return to the self.

Found objects and antique frames, heavy with history, contrast with the painted figures’ weightlessness, embodying the tension between constraint and liberation.

These works invite reflection on what it means to move through the world in a female body, and represent how women will always find a way out of their societal expectations. The way water will find a way out of a glass, eventually.“

- Excerpt from artist statement