2023
Sentences I, II, 2023
Waxed linen thread on handmade Indian cotton rag
Stream of Consciousness I, II, 2023
Waxed linen thread on handmade Indian cotton rag
Sheets of handmade paper are torn into strips and “repaired” with bookbinding thread, producing drawings that resemble abstracted writing or a material record of time passing. Part of a larger body of work across sculpture and drawing, the piece evokes rhythmical movement, flow, and continuation, as well as acts of counting and measuring. The book-page appearance of the work, and its title, allude to writing, albeit illegible in a semantic sense. Rather than offering meaning through language, the piece invites us to ponder time and space being marked – appearing both as pictorial representation of those processes and their performative residue.
Soft Spine (Open), I, II, 2023
Handmade Indian cotton rag, textiles, waxed linen thread
Pieces of delicate textiles are stitched between two sheets of handmade paper with bookbinding thread, creating a form of a rudimentary book, while alluding to the body. Central to the work is a gesture that – paradoxically – both connects and divides: the stitching attaches two pages together while the fabric groove inserted between them keeps them apart. The differences in the materiality of paper and textile are amplified through the simple interaction of materials. The work approaches the page and a piece of paper – and by extension, the book – as a confounding sculptural object rather than a surface to be inscribed.
Soft Spine (Concertina), 2023
Watercolour ink and acrylic on Arches watercolour paper, silk, waxed linen thread
Concertina (II), 2023
Watercolour ink on Arches watercolour paper, silk, waxed linen thread
Concertina (III), 2023
Watercolour ink and acrylic on Arches watercolour paper, waxed linen thread
Concertina (IV), 2023
Watercolour ink and acrylic on Arches watercolour paper, textiles, waxed linen thread
Soft Spine (Concertina) and Concertina (II), (III), (IV) continue a strand of recent pieces made with handmade paper, fabrics and bookbinding thread whereby pieces of fabric are stitched between pieces of paper – a gesture that simultaneously connects two surfaces as well as keeps them apart – to create a form of a rudimentary book. There is a sense of connecting, dividing, marking and measuring – of time, of intervals, of space of the paper, through the simple interaction of the two materials. Through a sequence of paper and textiles, the works approach the page – and by extension the book – as a sculptural object rather than a surface to be inscribed.
