The ‘Wild Women' that sit atop the flower bricks are inspired by the representation of women’s hair in medieval art.
Images of fur covered wild women, wild men and the hair and fur covered Mary Magdalene in the wilderness were popular subjects in late medieval secular art of Northern Europe.
The Wild Women of Claire Partington are a mix of this secular imagery and the very similar religious images from the same period.
‘Hair' is symbolic of desire and sexuality, but also symbolic of the duality between human and animal. The women on the flower bricks take on "wild beast" poses, that you may make in yoga or a school drama lesson when you imagine yourself being an animal. They also reference imagery of wild women in fairytales and legends of feral children, raised by animals.
The figures are posing on the with majolica technique decorated flower bricks. Flower brick I is decorated with images of women taken from Art History, Flower brick II is decorated with images of women making yoga poses - all accompanied by scissors so they can tame their wild hair.
The flower bricks are historically designed to show off highly prized flowers, to show a nature tamed. The 'Wild Women' sit within the artificial wilderness of the flowers, which gives a nice contrasting picture.