This is quick overview of what I do in the form of an Artist Statement and an Example Project.
I'm Uma, an artist, writer, and award winning game designer interested in animals, horror, and play. Everything I make is about some combination of love, grief, hallucination, and an excess of joy. I have an MA from the RCA Sculpture School (2008), and in 2020 I completed an AHRC funded PhD developing a philosophy of studio practice through ludology, horror studies, and Ecriture Feminine.
At present I am using Assemblage Theory and the history of religious art to develop a "dismembered Ecriture TransFeminine"; where a strategy of bricolage becomes a reflection of transition-as-becoming and capacity for repair. The research builds on a 2024-2025 residency at the National Glass Centre in Sunderland, a current research fellowship at the Henry Moore Institute working with the archive of Brian Catling, and a future solo exhibition at Gods House Tower (Southampton 2026).
My practice is orientated around images and text, manifesting as animation, drawing, games, and publishing. Additionally, with my collaborator Belladonna Paloma I make video games about the divine and occult providence of transfemme existence.
Recent exhibition and performances include: 'Shalala' for Raven Row (London 2025), 'The Joy of Destruction' for Backlit (Nottingham, 2023), 'Hinterlands' at Baltic (Gateshead 2022), and my first solo exhibition/game series 'Earth A.D.' co-commissioned by and touring across Wysing Arts Centre (Cambridge, 2022), FACT (Liverpool, 2023), and Quad (Derby, 2024).
Recent publications include: 'Two Dolls & An Egg' (with Belladonna Paloma) for Almanac Journal of Trans Poetics (Helsinki, 2024), 'The Graveyard of Extension' in Deleuzine Vol. 2 (London, 2023), 'Trans Death Magic' for SlugTown (Newcastle, 2023), and the forthcoming 'Love as vector and void in Luce Irigaray's "The Natal Lacuna" and Tai Shani's "Phantasmagoregasm"' in JAWs.
I have presented research on subjects including horror cinema, game design, and the philosophy of death at instituions including CalArts, The Ruskin, and Yale.
I was shortlisted for the Adam Reynolds Award (2020) and The Arts Foundation Award (2023), took 2nd place at the Athens Digital art Festival (2021), and was a 2024 AXIS Fellow.
Earth AD was a touring/expanding exhibition and series of webgames about the 'Reparative Gothic'.
Earth AD 1 (2022 exhibition). Wysing Art Centre.
Earth AD 1 (2022 game). Wetlands Archive / Syntax Collapse.
Earth AD 2 (2023 exhibition). FACT Liverpool.
Earth AD 2 (2023 game). Low Estate.
Earth AD 3 (2024 apocrypha). Due to severe financial trouble at the host venue QUAD in 2024, Earth AD 3 was unfortunately never realised. All that is left is the Earth AD Zine.