Thread is the gathering of four artists from different cultures and lived experiences sharing common ground; an overwhelming interest in the very stuff of textile practice, of lives lived in and through the literal and metaphoric language of thread. Their work is shown at the Elysium Gallery and is curated by Angela Maddox , Anne Jordan and Lorna Hamilton-Brown
Each artist recognising the potential of one drawn out, spun out, teased out fibre – in both singular and multiple forms – to perform as storyteller, witness, soothsayer, and to be simultaneously capable of healing and harm.
A thread twisted and plied with others, passed through the eye of a needle, the shed of a loom, the tip of a hook, slipped from twinned needles. The wrapped, pieced, tangled, bound, plied, woven, folded, stretched, torn, printed, hooked, knitted, unravelled, stitched, unpicked, blocked, eased, and dyed. All of this.
The thread of stories and narratives, of myths and constructed truths, of obsession, violence, and celebration. Threads worn at and through the body. All life is to be found in a thread.
Thread is an imperative, an instruction. Its practices of joining, increasing, and attaching are ones of expansion and growth. This Thread, and its gathered together fabric, its tales of objects and making, is a hopeful thing. It marks an emerging and new language of textile practice. Continue reading →
Symposium: What is handwoven tapestry’s place in contemporary art?