projects

During the many lockdowns due to Covid restrictions, I regularly walked in the Melbourne CBD, the grounds of University of Melbourne and Melbourne General Cemetery (within my 5km zone) mapping the urban landscape, noticing subtle relationships in the built environment whilst the city stood still, as if waiting. Since the pandemic, uses and connections that could be assumed were stable in the urban environment shifted. It’s not a static proposition. The environment constantly altered, shifting subtly as the community adapted.

The mostly deserted streets revealed a different experience of the city. I was inspired to test new works investigating diverse spatial qualities of forms and colour. Standard maps have spatial references and use codes to signify details of connections, but there’s always a disconnection between the map and the territory it describes- this is where my practice is located.

fancywork is an ongoing project of multiple intricately hand-embroidered panels, exploring complex patterns and using repetition to express rhythms that seemed new. The title refers to the fancy-work embroidery that was done in the Victorian era- and I’ve used the technique in a modern way with a contemporary bright palette, limited to 10 pink tones of embroidery cotton and fluorescent pink cord used by builders to create a string line.

The works use particular systems in their construction, beginning with the formal grid to explore the potential of its logic coupled with developing a vocabulary of forms which rely on instinct without preparatory drawings. The axis of the grid measures 90 x 70 apertures, and I developed code as I worked to freehand embroider geometric patterns across the surface. The panels are heavily worked: their complex details expose refined and distilled connections I observed and remembered between natural forms and architecture.

Using textiles as the origin of these works also relate to Lloyd Wrights textile blocks- modular cast concrete blocks that have geometric pattern surfaces. The texture from the hand embroidery is clearly expressed- these soften and enhance the experience of the environment. The work offers an opportunity to experience and contemplate subtle and complex aspects of the urban landscape, encountering and making connections between form, atmospheric conditions and space.

fancywork 2020 – 2023

cotton and cord on plastic grids

34 x 37 cm each

22 panels are currently exhibited in SUPERsystems with Peter Atkins at TarraWarra Museum of Art.