Kristin's artist profile Return to all artworks

Red Tape confronts the human impact of bureaucratic austerity. In this oil painting, a suited corporate figure methodically packs disabled dolls into a cardboard box, posed to seal it with a roll of red tape. The dolls, stripped of their autonomy, symbolise real people affected by disability benefit cuts. These individuals are reduced to objects, handled, contained, and ultimately erased from public view.

The act of sealing the box becomes a metaphor for systemic silencing: policies that limit financial support also curtail independence, consigning many to poverty and social invisibility. The businesslike detachment of the suited figure underscores the institutional coldness with which such decisions are often made, while the stark, minimal background focuses our attention on the transaction itself: part clinical process, part quiet violence. 

In the contrast between the professional dress of the figure and the disturbing subject matter of the work, Red Tape exposes the tension between the language of “efficiency” and the lived reality of exclusion. It asks us to reckon with the cost of policy changes when measured in human lives, rather than fiscal spreadsheets.

BSL

Audio description