A painter since childhood, Kira Somerset’s work is defined by its tactile surfaces, layered narratives, and slow, intentional process. Working across painting, sculpture, and installation, she builds her pieces through layers of brushstrokes, glittered paint skins, and hand-sewn threads. From a distance, they appear harmonious or even playful. Up close, they fracture into something more raw, more intimate, and quietly subversive.

Sewing becomes both a formal device and a feminist gesture, binding surfaces together while referencing the invisible labor historically assigned to women. Crucially, Somerset’s practice actively critiques and deconstructs the gaze. Her deliberate deployment of visual sweetness, glitter, and feminine-coded color is a calculated conceptual strategy that sets up a sophisticated conceptual loop: the work’s intentional use of these codes forces the viewer to confront the deeper narratives of emotional labor and gendered violence. By leveraging the very aesthetics that typically prompt dismissal, the artist exposes the systems that conceal or normalise harm. Somerset’s work deliberately blurs the line between sincerity and irony, allowing gestures of care to exist alongside pointed critique.

Her process is slow and ritualistic. Layers are built, erased, and rebuilt over months, resulting in surfaces that feel lived in and enduring, like skin that holds memory. Each piece is singular and impossible to reproduce. To recreate even one would take a lifetime. Kira holds a BA (Hons) in Fine Art and was the recipient of the Eaton Emerging Artist Award in 2024.