'Medusa' is an exceptional work by rising artist Susie MacMurray. Constructed from almost 300kg of copper wire this voluptuous temptress is clad in chainmail painstakingly made by hand by MacMurray and a small team of volunteers. With her skirt of delicate articulated tentacles she is at once seductive but also held captive, tactile yet dangerous her mail both ready for combat but also protecting a fragile interior. MacMurray cleverly asks us to question the role of women both in the past, in myth and in the present day.

An alchemist at heart, MacMurray has a talent for sensitively combining materials much as a conductor brings together his or her orchestra. Delicate, sensuous velvet contrasts with cold, tangled wire often reclaimed from battlefields or training grounds; soft round droplets of white beeswax are painstakingly placed at the ends of sleek lengths of black wire - there is no hierarchy of material in MacMurray’s work, rather refreshing transformation.

Susie MacMurray is a British artist whose work includes drawing, sculpture and architectural installations. A former classical musician, she retrained as an artist, graduating with an MA in Fine Art in 2001. She lives and works in Manchester and has an international exhibition profile, showing regularly in the USA and Europe as well as the UK. Her most recent commission ‘Gathering’ opens at Tatton Park, Cheshire this summer.