Statement
Embroidery and Stitching
I am interested in the social and political history of Embroidery as well as in the development of embroidery and stitching as a craft. The use of particular embroidery stitches for particular effects – e.g. French knots for the centres of flowers satin stitch, chain stitch, stump work etc.
I am also interested ideas of beauty and in the things people do to their bodies in the name of beauty. Men and women almost ritualistically shave and remove hair from their bodies – beards, underarm hair, pubic hair, leg hair etc, whereas other hair – hair on the head, eyebrows, eyelashes – are valued and encouraged to flourish. But there is other hair which not everyone has. This special hair seems to be, for some people, reason to feel ashamed. A large number of women and men submit their bodies to extraordinary procedures in the name of convention or beauty – liposuction, implants, scarification, surgery, lazer treatment, electrolysis etc.
My embroidery and stitching practice centres on bodies, beauty and ugliness and the conventions that determine which is seen as which. My medium is mainly stitched and embroidered fabric. I am interested in how we see things, how we interpret what we see and how the connotations of needlework and embroidery as a medium affect how the content is seen – is it seen as ugly, beautiful or funny?
2D TO 3D
It seems to me that a copy is something which seeks to reproduce the original as closely as possible and in so doing the copier creates nothing new – much like a photocopy.
In these pieces I am translating two dimensional images from well-known paintings into three dimensional objects. The painters whose work I have used translated three dimensional objects into two dimensional images creating something original and new. My translation from the two dimensional image to a three dimensional object is not a copy but the creation of something new. Even though I could not have made the objects without the painters’ images, I am translating rather than copying.
I want to investigate how the transformation affects how both the new three dimensional objects and the original two dimensional images are seen. Are the objects I have made recognisable as coming from the images in the paintings?
Part of my concern in this work is how fleetingly we look at paintings, particularly famous paintings which we have become so accustomed to seeing copies of. I wanted to spend time with the paintings and to overcome the indifference that their familiarity had induced in me. In naming the pieces as I have - using the familiar name of the owner of the objects - I want to reflect how 'everyday' even the most extraordinary paintings can become when they are reproduced ad nauseam.
DOUBLE-SIDED PAINTINGS
In this group of paintings my initial interest was in the nature of the surface – how one looks through the surface of a painting to what lies beyond. I used several layers of primer rubbed down to form a very smooth surface. I worked with the surface placed horizontally and started adding colours to the wet, smooth surface. It was at this point that my interest moved on from the surface and I started to notice how the paints behaved. Not only did the colours I was using affect each other in the way that any colour affects the ones surrounding it, they also affected each other in a physical way. One of the reds pushed every other colour away; when I dropped Portrait Pink onto Prussian Blue the blue contained the pink in a small circle; navy blue burst into a wavy, expanding circle. I used those characteristics to allow the colours to make their own way on the surface and also experimented with the effects of detergent, salt, vodka, vinegar, baking powder, oil, masking tape. Left overnight what appeared in the morning as the result of drying, separating, solidifying, splitting, combining, attracting and repulsing was sometimes extraordinary. Not quite making gold from base metal but making something which could not be planned and was always a surprise.
I see my role in the paintings as one of alchemist – I add the chemical elements but it is their reaction with one another and with H2O that creates the painting. There are no marks which indicate gesture or authorship.
I am interested in the social and political history of Embroidery as well as in the development of embroidery and stitching as a craft. The use of particular embroidery stitches for particular effects – e.g. French knots for the centres of flowers satin stitch, chain stitch, stump work etc.
I am also interested ideas of beauty and in the things people do to their bodies in the name of beauty. Men and women almost ritualistically shave and remove hair from their bodies – beards, underarm hair, pubic hair, leg hair etc, whereas other hair – hair on the head, eyebrows, eyelashes – are valued and encouraged to flourish. But there is other hair which not everyone has. This special hair seems to be, for some people, reason to feel ashamed. A large number of women and men submit their bodies to extraordinary procedures in the name of convention or beauty – liposuction, implants, scarification, surgery, lazer treatment, electrolysis etc.
My embroidery and stitching practice centres on bodies, beauty and ugliness and the conventions that determine which is seen as which. My medium is mainly stitched and embroidered fabric. I am interested in how we see things, how we interpret what we see and how the connotations of needlework and embroidery as a medium affect how the content is seen – is it seen as ugly, beautiful or funny?
2D TO 3D
It seems to me that a copy is something which seeks to reproduce the original as closely as possible and in so doing the copier creates nothing new – much like a photocopy.
In these pieces I am translating two dimensional images from well-known paintings into three dimensional objects. The painters whose work I have used translated three dimensional objects into two dimensional images creating something original and new. My translation from the two dimensional image to a three dimensional object is not a copy but the creation of something new. Even though I could not have made the objects without the painters’ images, I am translating rather than copying.
I want to investigate how the transformation affects how both the new three dimensional objects and the original two dimensional images are seen. Are the objects I have made recognisable as coming from the images in the paintings?
Part of my concern in this work is how fleetingly we look at paintings, particularly famous paintings which we have become so accustomed to seeing copies of. I wanted to spend time with the paintings and to overcome the indifference that their familiarity had induced in me. In naming the pieces as I have - using the familiar name of the owner of the objects - I want to reflect how 'everyday' even the most extraordinary paintings can become when they are reproduced ad nauseam.
DOUBLE-SIDED PAINTINGS
In this group of paintings my initial interest was in the nature of the surface – how one looks through the surface of a painting to what lies beyond. I used several layers of primer rubbed down to form a very smooth surface. I worked with the surface placed horizontally and started adding colours to the wet, smooth surface. It was at this point that my interest moved on from the surface and I started to notice how the paints behaved. Not only did the colours I was using affect each other in the way that any colour affects the ones surrounding it, they also affected each other in a physical way. One of the reds pushed every other colour away; when I dropped Portrait Pink onto Prussian Blue the blue contained the pink in a small circle; navy blue burst into a wavy, expanding circle. I used those characteristics to allow the colours to make their own way on the surface and also experimented with the effects of detergent, salt, vodka, vinegar, baking powder, oil, masking tape. Left overnight what appeared in the morning as the result of drying, separating, solidifying, splitting, combining, attracting and repulsing was sometimes extraordinary. Not quite making gold from base metal but making something which could not be planned and was always a surprise.
I see my role in the paintings as one of alchemist – I add the chemical elements but it is their reaction with one another and with H2O that creates the painting. There are no marks which indicate gesture or authorship.