Working on Where I wander in the night
A drawing, Where I wander in the night and a hand embroidery, On the Smallness of Things are two works I have had in group exhibitions at a new dealer gallery in Whangarei. Started by Megan Dickinson, MD Gallery is the only dealer gallery space in Whangarei, and such a good initiative! You can find the facebook page here.
On the Smallness of Things
I have been yearning for an artist run space, or a progressive gallery or collaborative maker space since moving here. There are people doing cool things, and a thriving community of artists, making cool and thoughtful work, but if you are not making art for tourists, or making ‘paintings’, ‘sculptures’ or traditional art forms, there is almost nowhere to present your work.
Both the drawing and embroidery emerged from work I have been doing with lichen and other biological and mineral growths (such as Dendrites). I love the connections and chaotic density in the lichen, the patterns of growth and structure are reproduced around me all the time.
On the Smallness of Things, detail
A bit more background on the embroidery, it’s worked on an old cloth nappy I found in an opshop, that was beautifully clean and white, but had patches of wear, it is almost going into holes in some places. The stitches in some places pull on these holes, (it’s hard to see in the photos) so sort of the opposite of mending (I had also been looking at the culture of mending and repair, and found some beautiful examples of my nana’s mending on her hankies).
Nana’s carefully mended hanky
Structurally, I have build the embroidery using stitch, and create areas of tension in some places, pulling on the holes that existed in the original textile. The forms are likened to bacterial growths, worms, lichen and algae, some viewers have seen this as a petri dish, this is work I will continue to develop…
On the Smallness of Things, detail
mermaids purse 