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Hamilton Art Gallery 30 November - 16 February 2020

A Stitch in Time

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Acknowledgement

Southern Grampians Shire Council acknowledges the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of this nation. We acknowledge the Gunditjmara, Tjap Wurrung and Bunganditj

people, the traditional custodians of the lands where we live and work. We pay our respects to ancestors and Elders, past, present and emerging. Southern Grampians Shire Council is committed to honouring Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s unique cultural and spiritual

relationships to the land, waters and seas and their rich contribution to society.

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A Stitch in Time brings together the work of seven prominent, contemporary female Australian artists, each working across a broad range of media from painting, sculpture and printmaking, to design and installation.

The artists presented in A Stitch in Time all share an interest in working with an array of traditionally craft-related techniques, deploying a breadth of processes from stitching, beadwork and carving, to assemblage, patchwork and weaving, in their realisation of powerfully contemporary statements.

Historically, predominantly in the West, craft has been deemed an ‘inferior art’, due to its association with functionality and the sexist characterisation of craft as a ‘domestic art’, or of being the ‘domain of women’. The elevation of craft as a ‘high art’ and the recognition of women artists has been inextricably linked.

The British Arts and Crafts Movement of the 19th Century saw a return to pre-industrial ideals of beauty, with a revival of arts and crafts practices, however the role of women remained a paradoxical one: with a dramatic increase in female artists and designers, women’s work remained underacknowledged.

The emergence of the Bauhaus movement and Modernism during the 20th Century led to a blurring of the lines between art and craft, yet many women remained confined to craft and decorative practices, with supposedly more masculine fields of painting, sculpture, design and architecture still dominated by men. Modernism did see a dramatic increase in women across disciplines, particularly in architecture and design, yet many of these women have been denied the recognition they deserved.

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Craft practices were given resounding credibility in the domain of ‘high art’ during the Women’s Movement, with Feminist artists of the 1970s firmly claiming these craft practices as powerful political statements in their work, unleashing craft’s radical potential and contributing to craft’s role in the evolution of contemporary art globally.

In contrast to the overarching historical characterisation of craft in the West as inferior to other ‘higher art forms’, we need not look far for examples of the integral, venerated function of craft in First Nations cultures across Australia; with master weavers and possum skin cloak makers, for example, held in the highest regard. The complex interconnections between cultural and creative expression, coupled with functionality, contribute to the reverence with which these artforms are treated.

Today, craft practices sit resolutely within contemporary art, holding an equal footing in a field of collapsing material hierarchies, whilst being imbued with consequential cultural and political power. A Stitch in Time presents artists who are skilfully enfolding a multiplicity of techniques and processes into works of profound potency.

Maudie Palmer AO & Eugene Howard, 2019

Co-curators A Stitch in Time

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1 Fiona Abicare Serpentine moon lounge for Roberto (2019)

Seaspray Cavalli, timber frame, upholstery foam/dacron 3000 x 1500 x 910 mm

Working through the expanded practice of sculpture, Fiona Abicare’s work is distinguished by its correspondence with a range of fields, such as sculpture, fashion, interior design, and culturalhistory, her creative process has a historical relationship to the various iterations of the ‘totalartwork’ (Gesamtkunstwerk) found in modernist design. Abicare is interested in transforming thetraditional distinctions between art and design through her decisions, materials and methodologies, and pays specific attention to the material qualities of objects and how an audience might encounter their placement in space. Based on extensive material research and conceptual framing, Abicare’s methodology addresses the intersection between histories of social space and their contemporary contexts. Often collaborative in nature, Abicare’s practice continues to be influenced by modernist art, design and architecture as well as by film and fashion. Her ongoing exploration of the role of

fashion as art within interior design histories – as well as her amalgamation of domestic and artistic forms – highlights her interest in the role of women within creative enterprise. These ideas are furtherenhanced by presenting works aligned with domestic display, such as cabinetry and soft furnishings. Her work often appears as both sculpture and décor, with objects presented here developedspecifically from her research into the 1930s and 40s ‘Golden Age of Hollywood’ and the 1990sCalifornian ‘Shabby chic’ style.

Vikki McInnes, October 2019

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1 Fiona Abicare Serpentine moon lounge for Roberto (2019)

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2 Vicki Couzens Koorookee meerreeng kooramookyan (grandmothers Country cloak) (2019)

Possum skins and twine 3000 x 1500 x 910 mm

These prints are a celebration of my experience printmaking and a 20-year relationship with the Australian Print Workshop (APW). I was honoured to be offered the Collie Printmaking Fellowship in 2018 by APW and so this body of work is the result of that Fellowship. I was able to explore more printmaking mediums of photolithography and lithography, where previously I had only done etching. Alongside this 20-year printmaking is my 20 years in language revitalisation in our Gunditjmara Mother Tongue. I included text in my language in one of the works (I usually title my works with language) and this was a first also aspreviously I had only ever used images, symbols and motifs, or colour and shading. Printmaking is a great medium to work in, it is very labour intensive and hands on, as is possum cloak making and weaving, two of the other practices that I do. Both, like printmaking, are hands on and very visceral and tactile which is something that I love when I am making and creating.

Possum skin cloaks were a vital part of Aboriginal people’s lives in pre-European times. Cloaks were used in daily activity, to keep warm, to sleep in

and carry our babies. Cloaks were an important trade item. Cloaks were significant in ritual and ceremony. We were buried in our cloaks – ‘wrapped in our Country.’ To make a cloak was a very labour intensive and time-consuming process. The skins were gathered, stretched and cured, incised with designs and sewn together with kangaroo sinew; some cloaks were made of 50 or more skins. The designs on the skins depicted stories of clan and Country. Weaving and/or sewing put me in a calm, chilled space; another dimension where I am centred and in touch with the Ancestors and creator spirits. It is very spiritual. The other great thing about weaving or sewing cloaks is that I am usually sitting down with community or family, so we yarn as we sew or weave; we share thoughts, stories and ideas, so culture is continued, alive and handed on.

Vicki Couzens, 2019

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2 Vicki Couzens Koorookee meerreeng kooramookyan (grandmothers Country cloak) (2019)

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3 Marion Manifold Flowers of the Field – Waiting for the SunriseTriptych

Linocut on BFK Rives paper, embroidery, beads & gouache82 x 3140 mm

My interest in identity and body imaging extends to military history as many of my family members have served in the defence force. I toured the Somme and Western Front in 2011 to get a sense of my grandfather’s WW1 service. And in 2014 I researched French war centenary exhibitions and related to a reference to genetic memory which could be relayed for many generations; I understood why the past was still with me. I wondered at the women left at home who also made their contribution and those who served inthe field – the Flowers of the Field. This work remembers women’s war work and includes details from badges including those wornby the Red Cross, the Emergency Signal Corps, the Mother’s and Widows Badge, and the Women’s Auxiliary, and it remembers women of the Special Operations Executive who acted as resistance workers and radio transmitters in France in World War 2 – many were executed in concentration camps.

Stitching has multi-purposes: it evolves from what was traditionally seen as women’s work to highlighting women’s rank and insignias showing that women played vital and invaluable roles inthe war – a time of women’s independence; it is a reminder of the secret stitched patterns the women used in coding; and each stitch is a way of coming to terms with the tragedy of war and destruction of young women’s lives and shattered identities.

Marion Manifold, 2019

3 Marion Manifold Flowers of the Field – Waiting for the Sunrise (2019)

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4 Sanné Mestrom Black Painting IV (2018)

Unspun undyed woollen tapestry, steel235 x 141 x 51 cm

Courtesy the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney

I have created these tapestries over a period of five years. As the title suggests, they reference American artist Frank Stella’s series of paintings by the same name. “Stella’s paintings were engaged in a process of reduction and refinement of the medium.” Whereas, in my case I am not creating a ‘painting’ as such, but creating the canvas upon which a painting might be made.

In this work I consider the warp and the weft of the weaving itself as the ultimate minimalist gesture to which Stella aspired in the 60s. I wanted to strip the painting back to its most reductive state - a state prior to the application of paint, a state even prior to the bleaching of the canvas upon which one might paint, a ‘pure’ state when the canvas itself is completely unaffected by the painterly process. What remains, when all is stripped back, is the warp and weft of raw fibre which ironically is vibrantly coloured and has all shades of white, brown and black.

My mother came over from New Zealand to work on the earlier iterations of these ‘canvases’ with me. Working together was a wonderful process. Whilst her profession is nursing, she also has a lifetime of practice in almost every craft imaginable including embroidery, crochet, flower arranging, drawing, card-making, knitting, sewing and upholstery. When we were young, she always joined local community classes to learn new skills and she shared these skills with me and my sister. Together we were always working on new projects, from collaborative crochet rugs to elaborate drawing exhibitions which we mounted at home in our rumpus room. My mother’s love of working with her hands and ‘making’ was directly transferred to me

Sanné Mestrom, 2019

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4 Sanné Mestrom Black Painting IV (2018)

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5 Sally Smart Assembly (Performance) 2019

Digital print on satin with collage elements (textile and hair) 275cm x300cm

Sally Smart’s practice has engaged with the female subject for over 30 years, employing women’sbodies, histories and legacies to consider female subjectivity within broader cultural frameworks.Working across textile, film, performance, painting, collage and multi-layered installations, Smart’s preoccupation with cutting, stitching, collage and fabricating has embodied a long-held commitment to feminism and the desire to take risks and transcend boundaries; a practice that has continually foregrounded women as both authors and subjects. Transgressive female agency is certainly at work in the major new textile works ‘Assembly (Performance)’, in which Smart orchestrates a line-up of female subjects who, in a powerful subversion of the female gaze, turn their backs to the viewer. The work references that of avant-garde choreographer Pina Bausch – who, like Smart, was well known for combining text, movement, imagery and emotional directness in

complex collages that lay the human condition bare. Smart’s commitment to avant-garde histories and legacies is further reflected in assemblage embroidery works – part of a major ongoing project, ‘The Choreography of Cutting’, that reframes and refigures the work of the Ballets Russes. Smart creates these works by first digitally cutting up images of the costumes designed for the dance company by key early modernist artists including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Sonia Delaunay among others. By engaging the experimental choreography, costume and theatre design of the Ballet Russes, as well as its legacies, Smart maps multiple ideas, temporalities and space to create a dynamic materialisation of thought, gesture andaction and, in so doing, she reimagines and embodies a vigorous discourse between the historical and contemporary avant-gardes.

Vikki McInnes, October 2019

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5 Sally Smart Assembly (Performance) (2019) (detail)

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6 Kylie Stillman Masking the Seam (2017)

Hand cut paperback books, timber shelves, sawhorse and ladder.182 x 144 x 80 cm ( H x W x D)

I enjoy exploring ways of making a mark, using alternatives to conventional drawing and sculpting materials and finding ‘pigments’ from the ‘real world’ to create an artwork. In ‘Masking the Seam’ I explore how line can be presented in absence, in the shadow of the carved book or as in the series of ‘Thread Drawings’ presented as a stitched mark. In each case the works are a means of bringing two-dimensional representations into a three dimensional space. This interest is directly connected to my background in domestic craft and having learnt to sew and construct garments from a young age, laying out fabric flat and working with a pattern to construct something to form to the contours of the body.

The title ‘Masking the Seam’ came from reading ‘Cloth Lullaby - The woven life of Louise Bourgeois’ by Amy Novesky in the book it talks about Bourgeois family background in textiles and the

act of working with cloth scraps ‘Two halves of a cloth would find their way back together again ‘rentrayage’ - to reweave across the cut. To make whole.’ The literal french translation of this is to mask the seam, which for Kylie talks a lot about how she values the way things are made, evidence in their construction and means of repairing them.

Additionally the content of the drawings: stitch samplers, mathematical constructs, mechanical cross sections, descriptive diagrams, vapour shadows and fractal stems in many ways talk about how things are made and constructed. When considering how the works are made: using individual hand cuts into paper and hand-threaded stitches this concept comes full circle, for the artist these pieces celebrate the initial marks made on a piece of paper, a simple gesture that signifies where so many things begin.

Kylie Stillman, 2019

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6 Kylie Stillman Masking the Seam (2017)

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7 Louise Weaver Empty cage (2009)

Hand crocheted lambs wool over hand turned persimmon wood, and Japanese rice wine gourd, 23 x 21 x 15 cm

Making for me is innate – it is my way of interacting with and understanding the world. I love trialing ideas and testing materials – seeing how their properties may be extended and implemented in new, often-unexpected ways. I think through making. I attempt to discover something new in everything I do – this constant search is very active, addictive and intellectually stimulating. It’s what makes all art (and life) worthwhile.

Inspiration for my work comes from a vast and eclectic range of personal, art-historical, scientific, popular and material sources. I have very specific taste ranging from pre-historic artifacts to contemporary works. The quality that unifies my preference for these seemingly disparate works is a current of deep personal intensity. I spend a lot of time looking at art first hand, both in Australia and around the world. I see this as active research, but it is fundamentally an abiding passion.

I also love to listen to music, read and walk – in the city, the Botanic Gardens especially, also by the sea and in the bush. I have realised that I solve problems and have my greatest breakthroughs in thinking when I walk – these are different to the ideas and breakthroughs that occur when making – (thinking through making). Often my best ideas occur when I least expect it – when I let things just wash over me – a state that is almost a form of meditation – being open to the question “what if?”.

Louise Weaver, 2019

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7 Louise Weaver Empty cage (2009)

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First and foremost, I would like to thank the artists whose works are featured in A Stitch in Time: Fiona Abicare, Vicki Couzens, Marion Manifold, Sanné Mestrom, Sally Smart, Kylie Stillman and Louise Weaver.

This extraordinary exhibition would not have been possible without the professional curation of Maudie Palmer AO and Eugene Howard. For their support, guidance and generosity, I thank them.

We are indebted to the lenders to the exhibition McClelland Sculpture Park + Gallery and the artists.

We gratefully acknowledge Vicki McInnes, Darren Knight, Christopher Hodges, Bryan Hooper, Ursula Sullivan, Lisa Byrne, Simon Lawrie and Christopher Palmer for their support.

We thank the artists’ dealers: Sarah Scout Presents, Sullivan+Strumpf and Darren Knight Gallery for their generous support.

To International Art Services (IAS), we extend our appreciation for their contribution to the transport of the exhibition from Melbourne.

A very special thanks to Jacqui de Kievit, Susie McKinnon, Anthony Rees, Jane MacDonald and Careena McDonald for helping us welcome our guests from Melbourne.

Acknowledgements

We also wish to thank John and Catherine Thomson of Crawford River Wines who are kindly providing us with a range of fine wines for the Gallery’s seasonal openings.

All Hamilton Gallery exhibitions are a team effort and I would like to thank our dedicated staff: Ian Brilley, Simon Sharrock, Lee Jones, Mengda Liu and Angus Christie for their ongoing commitment to the gallery.

Furthermore, we deeply appreciate the Hamilton Gallery Friends Committee, who graciously volunteer their time and significant expertise.

As always, we are grateful for the ongoing commitment to the gallery’s collection from the Hamilton Gallery Trust Fund; all of our generous Hamilton Gallery Friends, our donors and benefactors.

Finally, the Hamilton Gallery and our visitors are indebted to the Southern Grampians Shire Council and Creative Victoria who together enable the Gallery to continue to bring exceptional exhibitions to Hamilton and the region.

Amy Knight

Executive Officer, Cultural ArtsSouthern Grampians Shire Council

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© 2019 Hamilton Gallery, artists and authors.