An exhibition at Kingshill House showing new works of textiles, clay and wall-based installation.
Artist statement from show:
This body of work has been made in the last six months, although many of the materials have been with me for far longer. I collect things I find out on walks or when gardening. I gather these materials because they speak to me. I may not always know why or what they will be for but I keep them anyway.
A series of seven wall-based works hang on the wall opposite the fireplace. Composed of naturally-dyed wool and wrapped sticks within handmade wooden frames - the colours, patterns and arrangements evoke particular moods and moments in time. The sticks become stand-ins for people - crowds, a couple, a family, a lone figure. These wrapped twigs began in 2020 during the first lockdown. I would collect a stick from our local woods during our hour-long walk. Later that day, when I had a chance to sit down - usually after the kids had gone to bed, I would carefully envelop the form in thread. It was a calming process, a therapeutic way to concentrate on the now and reduce anxiety about the pandemic taking hold outside. That April we got to know the woods intimately, I felt I saw every leaf unfurl into the lime fresh green of spring.
On the marble fireplace rest a group of slip-cast hands. Made of unfired terracotta these vulnerable structures would dissolve and return to the earth if left outside. Cast individually, each hand starts to collapse when taken out of the molds a little too soon. They are then positioned together to make cupped hands but they start to distort. Like they’re giving way under the pressure of trying to hold everything. Relating as much to motherhood as the current environmental crisis, they give shape to the impossible attempt of trying to carry it all. But those two are linked aren’t they? What the future holds, what the following generations are inheriting.
In the hearth below the stands a little grove of saved and borrowed trees. Hazel, oak, ash, hawthorn and holly. All rescued from being thrown away during gardening work or borrowed from friends. A grove of real green, a vibrant presence in the room.
Lastly, opposite the windows, a ‘studio wall’ displays gathered plant materials, collected objects and test pieces for future work. Placing the focus firmly on process, on all the things that happen on the way to ‘finished’ pieces - the emphasis on the act of becoming. Of the possibility to make something new, something different to what has come before.