The latent sexual threat of her objects was often underscored in the early 1990s by provocative titles such as Defying Death I Ran Away to the Fucking Circus (1991; see 1997 exh. cat., p. 71), and Once Upon a Fuck (1992; see 1997 exh. cat., p. 70). From 1994 her work also became larger, more pictorial, often wall-mounted. Rocking the Boat before the Storm (glass, paper, steel, leather, ribbon and enamel, seven parts, 1994) commissioned by Peter Gabriel for the CD-ROM Eve, appeared as a screen made with an obsessive geometric repetition. It evokes various decorative sources, but has also a ritualistic aspect, underlining the sense of anxiety present in much of her work. This anxiety was a strong element of her exhibition as part of the 1998 Turner Prize shortlist. Themes of eroticism and death were also developed in small wall-mounted works, often made in sets. Trust Your Sanity to No-one (brass, copper, leather, chalk, glass and diamante, nine parts, 1994; New York, priv. col., see 1997 exh. cat., pp. 60–61), showed a large green jewel set in a fleshy mass, stretched and battened like a trophy to a sharp metal frame.
Turner Prize 1998 artists: Cathy de Monchaux
English sculptor. She studied at the Camberwell School of Art (1980–83) and Goldsmiths' College (1985–7). From the mid-1980s she made exquisite and intricate sculptures, at once seductive and grotesquely threatening. In the late 1980s her work carried an atmosphere of erotic restraint.