Gaskell's imagery is sparked by narratives with gothic or surreal overtones, such as fairy tales or the stories of Frankenstein or Alice in Wonderland. Before making the photographs and films for which she is best known, she often uses drawing to work out what she’s read and imagine her compositions. These pen drawings exhibit the same fragmentation and repetition of the female body that informs her work in other mediums. Their titles recall a reflection by her Surrealist predecessor Hans Bellmer: "The body is like a sentence that invites us to rearrange it, so that its real meaning becomes clear through a series of endless anagrams."
Gallery label from Exquisite Corpses: Drawing and Disfiguration, March 14–July 9, 2012.