Genderqueer deity by Rachael House

Rachael House's genderqueer deities are wall-hanging apotropaic sculptures. They are stoneware ceramics, and some are embellished with beads woven from queer newspapers, bottle tops and stamped ceramic charms.

 

All the stamps used to decorate the deities are handmade, and highly
charged with meaning. They include goddess symbols, trans and feminist symbols and stamps of the objects used to protect the maker from harm in witches bottles- pins, sharp things, hair, salt and herbs.

 

Rachael House’s work is informed by her research into witch bottles, often made from Bellarmine jugs in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Rather than warding against witches spells, her genderqueer deities protect us from gender conformity and those who would attack the rights of women, womxn and all of those with less power than the ruling elites.