This body of work responds to Angela Carter’s The Erl-King, from her collection The Bloody Chamber, a dark retelling of the folk tale in which a young girl is drawn into the woods by a mysterious figure who keeps birds in cages. Through pen and ink drawings, photography and photograms, I explore the story’s mix of enchantment and danger, where desire and entrapment are hard to tell apart.

The pen and ink drawings capture the tangled, hypnotic density of the woods, while photography records the textures and light of real woodland. The photograms, made by placing leaves, feathers and found objects directly onto light-sensitive paper, leave ghostly traces that feel like evidence of something half-seen. Together, they reflect my ongoing interest in folklore and in how stories of temptation, freedom and captivity continue to echo in our own lives.