Uniform
Acrylic, cold wax, and oil on canvas, 96 × 121 cm, 2024
 
Artwork Statement
My practice explores the intersection of neuro-normative standards, gendered expectations, and personal agency. Uniform emerges from my lived experience as a woman with ADHD navigating the rigid structures of mainstream schooling systems, where pressures to conform were both internalised and externally imposed.
Rather than offering a direct critique of these institutions, the work focuses on articulating the embodied tension produced by these overlapping expectations. Receiving an ADHD-C diagnosis in adulthood prompted a re-evaluation of these experiences, particularly how masking behaviours and gendered norms shaped my ability to exist within institutional frameworks.
Through painting, I attempt to give form to these intangible conditions. Gesture, colour, and symbolic imagery reflect restricted agency and internal conflict. Within Distributed Worlds, the work considers how identity is shaped across intersecting systems, and how these pressures are unevenly experienced by neurodivergent individuals, particularly women and AFAB people.
 
Artist Bio
Christina Rankin is an emerging artist from Wonthaggi, currently based in Naarm/Melbourne. She completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts at RMIT in 2024, receiving the Tolarno Hotel Prize for her graduate exhibition painting Uniform, and later completed her Honours year in 2025. Her practice has recently evolved through the integration of textile processes within painting, expanding both her material and conceptual approaches.