The 16 th Tamworth Fibre Textile Biennial A matter of time curated by Suzie Attiwill features the work of over twenty-seven artists from a diverse range of backgrounds. It is a quiet and contemplative exhibition where the works have conversations with each other. Like a piece of music, this show is a composition where elements repeat, patterns, techniques, colours and materials provide counterpoints and refrains. What the works have in common is their basis in textile practice, and their association with temporal experiences.
The Tamworth Fibre Textile Biennial organised by the Tamworth Regional Gallery has been running since the 1980s and has come to be an anticipated event for Australian textile audiences and practitioners. Each Biennial a different curator is commissioned to develop an exhibition with a national focus bringing together the work of artists from across the country and touring extensively to regional galleries. This year the show was also the first exhibition to grace Tamworth 's new purpose built regional gallery, a light airy space in the centre of town.
Two of the first works I encounter are Monique van Niewland's For a time 2003 and Eternity , woven panels incorporating a baby's nappy and an old blanket respectively. The original objects have been deconstructed by Van Niewland, the threads woven into larger textile pieces becoming representations of themselves and formal elements in larger works. The panels are so beautifully woven that I immediately want to touch, I have to resist the temptation to take the edge between my thumb and forefinger. A narrow vertical band of red stripes runs through each piece, described in the artist's statement as a representation of the timeline of life. The smaller panel incorporating the nappy threads is printed with the word time and the larger panel, eternity reminiscent of the writings of Arthur Stace, who's eternity appeared briefly yet repeatedly in chalk on Sydney pavements over many years. Van Niewland's work is compelling for its quietness, the colours are restrained and the construction is controlled, yet for all their subtlety these panels have a significant physical impact. Their quiet presence makes me think of the rituals surrounding birth and death, of the preciousness of ordinary fabrics, and the history of things that sit next to our skins. The pieces with their warp and weft threads, their layering of materials, their repetition of vertical and horizontal lines are the products of process, they are a reminder of the method of their construction, they have a mathematical order.
Monique van Niewland
"For a time",
2003
In contrast John Barbour's Untitled object: I will not steel 2003 is almost abject. A stained piece of fabric, an off-cut with fold marks is embroidered with a series of statements, lines Barbour's daughter wrote as a form of punishment/education some time in the past. That piece of paper, retained by the artist has been partially translated into embroidery. This appears to be an awkward and unfamiliar writing process for Barbour who reproduces the text: I WILL not Steel six times as a numbered list followed by 7. I WILL NOT ASK then 8. I WILL and 9. in red has no corresponding text. Below the list other words embroidered down the centre of the object read:
Be
Born
AGAIN
(HOLe)
And at the very bottom:
U WILL DIE
The piece defies the usual conventions of textile practice – it is not hemmed, it is not beautiful, it looks like a used cleaning rag. The list above seems to be like a meditation, while the words below rise up from a deeper subconscious place. As if out of the child's writing meditation something else about the nature of being and dying emerges. Its references to birth and death, its potential to survive and to be precious despite its fragile nature make it a compelling object.
Opposite van Niewland and Barbour's works hangs Paull McKee's Bequeathed 2004. McKee's works inspired by Wagga quilts also engage with ordinary and familiar objects taking fragments of used materials and piecing them into a new form. McKee is interested in exploring the construction of Australian masculinity and has chosen a practice historically carried out by men, the construction of rugs or quilts made from ordinary fabrics such as hessian sacks and other recycled materials. This piece, in conjunction with van Niewland and Barbour's engage in a reflective dialogue. McKee's work evokes landscape, open spaces and the process of stitching, piecing together histories and experiences. These three works explore the spaces between, they are present as material constructions, objects that engage the senses and inspire imagining.
Louiseann Zahra's if he so intended 2002 is also made through a process of ‘un-construction'. The artist has carefully removed the warp threads from two domestic cloths leaving the lace edges intact to hold the pieces together. Mounted on velvet in glass fronted frames they are presented as precious, yet damaged objects. Interrupting the curve of loose threads held by the border are embroidered motifs, carefully left intact so they look like they could either be anchoring the threads in place or have been caught, ensnared by the threads whilst passing by. I think of a table in my Grandmother's house, her collection or souvenir teaspoons and the silver teapot for special occasions. The objects evoke an obsessive process, a careful unpicking which opens them up, removes their usefulness and re-casts them as objects of remembered performances.
Louiseann Zahra,
Cotton, velvet, frame, 2002
Liz Williamson's Dark d'oyley 2004 in another part of the exhibition resonates. The navy blue ink darkness of this piece of damask makes it hover off the wall, dense and solid. Being this dark it becomes a void, an object that speaks of absence. Williamson's work is also a kind of re-construction, instead of pulling apart and working with existing object, she made the work from scratch incorporating into the damask weave references to an older objects. The image of a d'oyley Williamson discovered at the Tumbaramba Women's Hut Museum that had been darned, repaired so the additional stitches became part of the fabric, part of the identity of the object, is represented in the embossed weave of the damask complete with those additional darned marks.
Cinnamon and roses 2004 by Sara Lindsay also draws on family history. This long narrow horizontal woven panel commences with a block of cinnamon bark dotted with tiny roses providing an anchor and contrasting with the rest of the panel woven from inherited family textiles. A rose bud pattern repeats periodically and in the mostly white weave, fragments of pink and yellow appear. It is like a book written in a language readable only to those who share the histories of the materials that make it. Like many of the works in this exhibition the piece expresses time through the process of its making mentioned in the catalogue as ‘five centimetres for every year'. Cinnamon and roses gives a certain amount away, but also holds within it information, stories, memories it hints at. This is one of the aspects I enjoy most about this exhibition, many of the works withhold as much as they express. I am interested in the possibility that viewers can respond to aspects of the works that are deeply connected to their makers, to other histories and private moments without knowing the whole story.
Another work where the use of pattern and line is significant is Jowan 2004 a series of woven baskets made from lawyer cane by Desly Henry. One basket is sitting on a plinth and two are hanging on the wall at an appropriate height where you can peer down into them and also examine the external surfaces. The fine rigid lines of the cane create a moire effect when you walk past. The works cast detailed shadows on the walls beneath them reinforcing the qualities of lines gathering in elegant arcs to create the bicornial shape of the bottom of the baskets. The baskets have traditionally had many uses. Collecting food, catching shrimp and carrying babies are mentioned in the exhibition catalogue.
In this context they also represent a skill base and construction process that is becoming increasingly rare, they appear as aesthetic objects. The production of these objects represents another form of unspoken knowledge, the knowledge passed from one generation to another in the form of a physical skill. The process of making these objects has been part of the daily life of particular communities for a long time. As lifestyles change and are affected by external forces these processes are affected, they can be lost, or retained in a different way. The reframing of these objects in a gallery context adds another layer to their identity and perhaps adds another impetus for their production.
There is a strong sense of performance in A matter of time. The works evoke the performance of their production, they have relationships with bodies, make reference to domestic rituals, prayers the acts of reading, remembering, breathing. Linda Lou Murphy's work drawing threads 2004 is literally based in performance. Her performance of objects is about wearing, looking, showing, undressing, displaying, subverting conventions and examining the social relationships we have with attire. The individual objects are compelling and can be encountered alone as an installation. They are like clothes yet also like nineteenth century scientific objects, frilled ruffs, overlong sleeves, bags that become viewing devices. Unfortunately I was unable to witness Murphy's performance so I encountered the work as a series of objects installed with just two small polaroids from the performance pinned on the wall to hint at an event that had already occurred. The objects were made from ordinary sewing materials, interfacing, pins, brown paper – delicate pleated, patterned and ultimately fragile materials. It was interesting to encounter a work that referred to a past partly inaccessible to the viewer – I was left to imagine Murphy's process of undressing/unpacking and to experience the performance as a remembered narrative communicated by others who had witnessed the event.
Another work that visually depicts the objects being used are Rosemary O'Rourke's Praying hand protectors 2004. The Praying hand protectors are presented on red platforms on three plinths with an image on the wall behind them showing one of the pieces resting lightly over a pair of praying hands. The material of the protectors is an almost transparent organza, and each protector is stitched with a different pattern of marks to create a unique object. O'Rourke mentions that she is interested in objects that hold a talismanic power in the catalogue, and these objects certainly have a presence that belies the fragility of their construction. By being so light they compel the person praying to hold their hands still, giving them an object on which to focus their attention. Whilst not being dense enough to shield the hands from even a gentle breeze, they are a reminder of religious relics and the powers those objects are said to retain.
Rosemary O'Rourke, "Praying hand protector 1", 2004
The material does not restrict – it must be used willingly, the user must hold still and focus to keep the hand cover in place. To hold oneself in a state of stillness to observe and to breathe is to be in the present, these objects provide the opportunity to explore time coalescing, they refer to a past, and an imagined future in the immediate moment of meditation.
For A matter of time Curator Suzie Attiwill has drawn together works from a diverse range of practitioners, the exhibition includes traditional and contemporary construction methods and materials, artists who do not come from a textile background and artists who are recognised for their textile based practices. The works mentioned above are only a small selection from a composition where the overall exhibition is a successful sum of a diverse range of engaging and complex parts. They include work by Sue Blanchfield and Christian Bumbarra Thompson who use garments and the relationships between fabric and bodies to explore in different ways the imagery and expectations of a colonial nation. Sharon Peoples' Tracings 2001 also engages with colonial themes and the narrative possibilities in a series of contrasting embroidered images that simultaneously plays with the physical process of stitching.
Bula'bula arts Aboriginal Corporation's installation Continuum: 2003 of Dhimbuka baskets and Balgurr dancing skirt are a collection of fascinating objects which also evoke performance and use, and Sebastian de Mauro's Pivot 2002 to 2003 are deceptively simple domestic objects woven from Mountain Ash bark that hover between designer interior objects and an uncomfortable imagined relationship with the bodies that might use them as bedding. Mavis Warrngilna Ganambarr's Basket 2004 uses ochres to create rich layers of pattern on the surface of a basket that has an immediate relationship to the body through its scale.
Georgina Creswell's Quilt for Sarah 1998 to 2004 is a work that literally took a matter of time to make, it's surface like a diary written in stitches, patterns and layers of fabric and Julie Ryder's Past...Present...Future 2004 is a series of three hangings incorporating elements produced over a ten year period referring to the past, present and future of Ryder's own practice. Holly Story's Belongings 2003 situated nearby, a low wall of wooden crates filled with folded fabrics references landscape, and in the folded fabrics the unendingness and reassurance of domestic work.
India Flint's Miss Haversham like garment Wrapping cloth for the hundred years' sleep 2004 references fairy tales of lives suspended to explore the experience of internment. Sue Saxon and Anne Zahalka use crisp embroidered handkerchiefs and transferred photographic images in Displaced Persons 2003 to create a layered work exploring the experience of migration. Meredith Hughes work silence 2002 forms an ephemeral quilt as lush embroidered floral motifs spread creeper like over an assemblage of newspaper pages collected at the time of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Centre.
S!X – Denise Sprynskyj and Peter Boyd show a collection of garments produced initially in 2002 and reworked in 2004 alongside a video of catwalk models wearing the garments. The video distorts and pixillates creating a moving show of pattern, light and rhythm. Sue Pedley has harnessed pattern and movement to create Sound of Manh Tre 2004 a cyanotype print on paper made by exposing a light sensitive medium to the shifting rays of light coming through bamboo blinds in Vietnam . Andrew Nicholls creates a virtual textile with Untitled (Time after time), after a detail from Mac Ernst's Une Semaine de Bonte (1934), 2004 to 2006. An appropriated appropriation it hovers ghostlike on the wall fuzzing slightly out of focus towards one end.
The exhibition can be seen as transgressing the traditional boundaries between art and craft and design. All the works are equal in this context, they engage with each other and the viewer as objects despite the labels audiences and artists impose on their practices. One of the successful aspects of the exhibition is the way it transcends some of the traps that exhibitions presenting works by artists and craftspeople can fall into. Contemporary artists who use craft materials and techniques can be perceived as the ones pushing the boundaries, they make craft cool, while the craftspeople who already choose these media and processes are not seen as innovative and contemporary, so the visual artists end up validating what is already an area of rigorous exploration and innovation.
This is not at all the case here, where I think all the works can be engaged with on their own terms. A matter of time successfully communicates that the craft of textiles is an extremely rich area of investigation and plays an important role in informing contemporary visual practice. Attiwill herself stays well away from the language of opposition that breaks complex histories and methodologies down into narrow binary oppositions. The important links for all of the works in the exhibition are articulated in the title. These works are matter, the material of time, produced in and over time. They are encountered sensually and have relationships with the bodies of the audience members and with each other. Attiwill is interested in orchestrating the exhibition as an event, a temporal experience for the viewer that is multilayered and communicated through a sensory engagement with the works. The works are not presented as some kind of thesis or illustrations of a set of theories, their communication is tacit, they affect the viewer and bring the audience in to participate in the exhibition as active agents.
Kate M Murphy is an artist and is currently working for Craft Australia as Manager of the Interact: Contemporary craft in a digital future project.
Last modified 24-Feb-2005
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