Six months ago a Mullion artist hit the headlines after covering up nudes in her paintings with paper underwear - and now she's back in the news, but for the opposite problem.

Tracey Miles's latest work, called Censorship, depicted a nude self-portrait, complete with a pair of magnetic strips featuring the words 'it's allusion' used to black out, or censor, the hip and breast area,

However, Tracey has been left "very surprised, if not a little shocked" to find it altered by a member of the public, who took the strips to expose the full nude while the painting was on display at the Tolmen Centre in Constantine.

This comes just six months after Tracey added 'underwear' to two of her nudes, as a humorous way of highlighting the issue of censorship in today's world and how it relates to nudes in artwork, which she described as "an object of reverence, not of sexuality."

She said that this latest attack on her work felt like vandalism to her piece, adding: "I am not sure if this was in defence of my position, that the nude is an object of beauty and its depiction in artwork can promote a higher aesthetic. The feminine should be revered as sacred, not negatively associated in any respect and I feel this includes the body.

"However, I did not choose to exhibit it in this state and I certainly feel it exposes me to more criticism.

I am not an exhibitionist! I would really like to chat with the individual about why they felt the need to take them."

She is now appealing for whoever took the strips to return them to the Tolmen Centre before the exhibition closes next Thursday, June 1, so she can continue to exhibit the piece.

Tracey said she would like to understand more about why her work caused such a reaction.

She added that at a recent talk she gave to Helston WI, about her work, she felt other women were able to understand and support her motivation and experience as valid.