Our relationship to our body and our body’s relationship to its environment are central themes explored in Maycock’s work. Sometimes bodies are depicted as flat surfaces, whilst at other times a traditionally flat surface, such as canvas, is installed in a series of folds. The body’s presence and absence are also themes that weave throughout her work. Hers is a painting practice that uses both a traditional and an expanded approach to painting, allowing herself the freedom to develop a language in both areas, in an examination of what it is to be a ‘painter’ today.

When employing the more traditional approach, Maycock focuses on the idea of the palimpsest, using a layering technique to create a painted surface where the act of ‘truly looking’ is demanded of the viewer. For her, the surface of the canvas becomes a sort of palimpsest, a surface that is continually written and rewritten.

When using a more expanded approach, Maycock extends the possibility of painting beyond the frame by using the canvas like a fabric. Here she creates site-specific works where the canvas might map a space or simply inhabit it. The fold is a device often used in this approach, which for Maycock carries connotations of both embodiment and inhabitation. In these works the surface of the canvas has sometimes been exposed to feet, and sometimes to weather, the marks of which reinforce the idea of the palimpsest, where “the signified is diminished to imperceptibility” (Roland Barthes).