Textile art pushes boundaries
THE textile arts have shaped and documented human history for centuries.
Today the roles of form and function remain but have extended to include dramatic artistic expression.
Photography too has transcended its documentary purpose to create montages that reflect individual interpretation.
The Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery is hosting the inaugural Art Textile Biennale, 2020. This is an international juried exhibition sponsored by Fibre Arts Australia.
From nearly three hundred entries, twenty-nine artists were selected from sixteen countries including Australia, two of whom, Hilary Fogerty and Barbara Stephenson are local to our region.
Fogerty’s work is an unrolled spool of silk and linen with sewn text that introduces snippets of history.
Stephenson’s up-cycled footstool is upholstered in old blanket pieces, sewing scraps, and felted knits using standing wool and quillie rug making techniques.
This is not a traditional textile show, it pushes the boundaries by offering raw emotion, faith, and personal philosophies that address large, small, and universal issues.
Gintare Juodele from Lithuania looks at vanity and consumerism.
New Zealander Maggy Johnston has woven copper threads from the burnt-out solenoids of a pipe organ to make a chemise.
Lucie RichardBertrand from France has used burlap to make tiny houses symbolising shelter and refuge.
London artist Caren Garfen’s installation of tiny photographs is a moving indictment of racism and genocide.
The atrium space at the gallery is featuring work by Glenys Mann and Nonie Sutcliffe, the founding forces behind Fibre Arts Australia.
The use of water-soaked fabrics, natural dyes, old hessian, flour, and salt make robust statements by
Mann, while the hand-stitched reclaimed fabric squares by Sutcliffe are delicate counterpoints.
An introduction to the artists and their practices in the catalogue, or within the exhibition would be a beneficial addition.
The Alexandra Lawson Gallery, 482 Ruthven Street, is presenting a collaborative exhibition. Love Lies Bleeding, the works of Sarah Ryan and Tiffany Shafran.
Although the title may suggest a Victorian melodrama and the hopelessness of unrequited love, it actually celebrates the Amaranthus caudatus or ‘Love lies Bleeding,’ an exotic plant with flowing tasselled tresses of crimson flowers.
Ryan grew her plant from seed, and it sits in the gallery as the catalyst linking the artists’ creativity.
Gardening, collecting, reading, and wandering are activities shared and explored and through which they discover the weird, wonderful, and precious secrets often camouflaged within the ordinary.
Ryan’s photographs are meditations on quietness and repose.
They are about taking time to walk and think, turning thoughts into visual images.
They also imply both the absence and presence of an unobtrusive witness.
Shafran’s collages assembled from her trove of treasures give new meaning to patterns of existence while acknowledging previous associations.
The exhibition carries connotations of symbolic metaphor: we need to reconnect with nature, appreciate simplicity, and tend our damaged world.