Weathering a Life
Gallery 76 Queen Street, Concord West. February 2023
These textiles are a reflection on the passage of time and fragility through breakdown and evolution from weathering and ageing; a parallel landscape of outer and inner worlds. I use stitch with a sense of peace and tranquillity. It is a slow and meditative process and the stitch lines represent the journey and my crossings over the land. I wish to narrow the distance between the natural forms and what I am creating. It is through the layering of different procedures that I am able to make my own model of landscape. I do not wish to reproduce the landscape itself, but what I feel and experience. I aim for an abstract representation having no desire to faithfully or literally reproduce it. Instead, I try to provide the viewer with an artwork they can lose themselves in and discover their own sense of quietness and stillness.
Weathering a Life
Impression; questioning. Hand stitch and couching collage on eco printed overdyed recycled cotton wrapping cloths 81x 25 My textiles use a limited colour palette, exploring tonal changes, which allows me to embrace the concept of time and timelessness. Using recycled, overdyed and layered cloth emphasises the concept of weathering and decomposition.
Littoral Beginnings. Stitch and mixed media on Collograph print 75x25 I wish to narrow the distance between the natural forms and what I am creating. It is through the layering of different procedures that I am able to make my own model of landscape.
Littoral beginnings. Stitch on Collograph print 75x25 My artwork has its beginnings in the loss and erosion of the Littoral zone. That is the intertidal area or near shore. I am a keen photographer and began to notice ever increasing eroded fragments of the shoreline on Jervis Bay where I live.
Residual shore grass. Stitch on Collograph print 75x26 On one level my work is a contemplation of the physical weathering in the environment - abstract representations of a landscape I engage with.
Persistence; memory. Simple stitch contours and collage on eco printed overdyed recycled cotton wrapping cloths. 81x 26 My textiles are on recycled cloth that have been over and over eco dyed. They were the wrappings used for my contact eco prints and most are at least 10 years old. The patching and restitching becomes a metaphor of repair of our fragile environment, created and impacted by human activity or aspects of my life as I age.
Disintegration; renewal. Fabric collage and stitch on eco printed overdyed recycled cotton wrapping cloths. 81x 27 The recycled cloths are worn and ripped and have that perfect intrinsic beauty that comes with age, oxidation, overdying, and layering of fragments of fabric. The fabric collage and simple stitch lines aligned to landscape adds to the weathering and a life lived.
Connection; attachment. Fabric collage and stitch on eco printed overdyed recycled cotton wrapping cloths. 81x25 I do not wish to reproduce the landscape itself, but what I feel and experience. I aim for an abstract representation having no desire to faithfully or literally reproduce it. Instead,
Fragmented; repair. Fabric collage and stitch on eco printed overdyed recycled cotton wrapping cloths. 81x 27 I invoke place in the work by often using simple lines and shapes as well as textile practises. I ground the work in the everyday of human history, adding weight to the understanding that we should not think of ourselves as set apart from the world we live in.
Unstructured; structured: Hand dyed perlé cotton thread stitched on painted preloved linen with felted silk chiffon. 81x 27 I aim to provide the viewer with an artwork they can lose themselves in and discover their own sense of quietness and stillness.
Persistence; memory. Simple stitch contours and collage on eco printed overdyed recycled cotton wrapping cloths. 81x 26