Vix Fowler

Sculpture and Drawing

Vix Fowler is a recent graduate from Gray’s School of Art, with an MLitt in Film, Art and Visual Culture Management, 2024. Their interest in art usually lies in communication, reflection and process, though their recent work explores vaginismus and how societal attitudes towards sex can worsen symptoms. Fowler uses a range of media in their art, with a focus on miniature sculpture and drawing.

Stacked Chairs, 2025

This work was made as a response to exploring their personal experience with vaginismus. Vaginismus is a psychological condition where someone’s vaginal muscles tighten at the point of penetration, making acts such as fingering, PiV (Penis in Vagina) or inserting a tampon painful or downright impossible. Vix’s recovery has also been a process of unlearning punishment, shame and self-pity in tandem with the physical process. During this, they have become interested in how cis-hetero-patriarchal pressures and attitudes towards sex prevalent within their culture inform our relationships with intimacy.

The work specifically celebrates shared intimacy outside of societal expectations with the use of a made-up euphemism: to stack chairs. It questions how we are taught about intimacy and sex in two ways. First, in our avoidance to talk plainly about the act itself and the lack of sexual education outside of cis-heteronormative ideas of what intimacy can be.

Full Shot of Chairs
Trio of Chairs
Three Sets of Chairs
Stacked Chairs
Stacked set of Chairs
Focused Detail of Chairs
Focused detail of Chairs 2
On Floor Chairs
Facing Towards Each Other Chairs
3/4 Shot of Chairs
Between Legs Chairs
Detail Shot of Chairs
Close Up of Chairs
Facing Away from Each Other Chairs

Furniture, especially chairs have become a recurring subject in Vix’s work, interested in the idea of breathing life into them through distortion. Hoping to embody tension through this distortion, but also balance as well. The work can also be interpreted as a comment on objectification because no one can be stacked and stored as easily like a set of chairs.