Get your hand off me, 2026, Oil on ACM panel, 30 × 40cm 

This self-portrait responds to my own experiences of strangulation and to the growing prevalence of strangulation during sex. A 2024 study by researchers from the University of Queensland and Melbourne Law School, published in Archives of Sexual Behaviour, found that 57% of young Australians aged 18–35 had experienced strangulation, or “choking”, during sex at least once.

The urgency of this issue was brought into sharp focus by the recent death of a 16-year-old girl who was found unresponsive at a home in Sydney. NSW Police are investigating her death in connection with an alleged sexual strangulation act.

Strangulation during sex is not a new phenomenon or conversation. Yet its increasing normalisation raises difficult questions about consent, coercion and gendered violence. Through this self-portrait, I confront an experience that is often minimised or eroticised in the hope that the viewer might reevaluate this from of gendered violence.

Available

$1200

Please note that the price is AUD and does not include shipping. Please contact Alanah via email alanah_ellen@hotmail.com to purchase this artwork or to inquire about shipping.