Bedtime Tiles

Bedtime Tiles (160 × 160 × 12 cm) is a collection of inlaid ceramic floor tiles made using traditional medieval encaustic tile making processes. Referencing the decorative language of 13th–15th century priory tiles, the work reimagines these historical artefacts through a contemporary, autobiographical lens. Each tile features iconography drawn from Leah’s personal life; everyday objects, reoccurring motifs, and symbolic forms, collating a visual archive that merges the devotional with the domestic.

By employing historically accurate processes, the work establishes a tangible connection to the past, whilst subverting its iconographical conventions. The tiles depict intimate narratives that speak to memory, identity, and nostalgia, using an endangered craft to consider how the past informs the present, particularly in relation to trauma, memory, and sentimentality. The use of repetition and floor-based installation reflects the original function of priory tiles yet transforms them into a site of contemporary storytelling, a reliquary of the self.

This engagement with history is both nostalgic and reflective, using material permanence to explore the instability of memory and time. The tiles address a lingering presence of trauma and the desire to soften it, presenting a gentle yet striking visual language rooted in both personal experience and collective craft traditions. Through the integration of past and present, the work seeks to preserve what otherwise remains unseen whilst reframing perceived fragility as something resilient and quietly enduring.