We made it! This is the final installment of the Art + Design Store – Friday Feature column, where I give you a closer look at artworks from my recent solo exhibition: Collected Patterns: The botany of Walter Hill. Today we look at the textile works Collected Patterns 1, Collected Patterns 2 and Collected Patterns 3. These works were inspired by the invaluable research of Walter Hill, the Brisbane Botanic Gardens’ first and most significant curator (1855-1881) and the lovely little twist is that they are machine embroidered!
For the textile works I wanted to look at just one part of one of the plants I’d chosen as inspiration for the works and decided on the Caladium leaf. You can read more about the connection between Hill and the Caladium, where I delved into the facts behind the giclée print in the exhibition in a previous Friday Feature showcase. Working with only one element gave me the opportunity to explore the diversity of formal, balanced and highly structured pattern design, which would suit commercial ‘all over print’ application for multi-directional textiles. But in this case, for the exhibition work, I chose embroidery as one of the media for two main reasons: 1) I wanted to make a connection to the women of Hill’s time, who would have frequented the Gardens as a recreational pursuit for promenades and as inspiration for their floral embroideries, and 2) using machine embroidery allowed me to keep a unified conversation between the media in the series – letterpress, giclée print and embroidery – all highly detailed, precise works produced by machine, which emulated Hill’s methodical and fastidious approach to his own work. I like connections and deeper layers of meaning like this…
Whilst the possibilities for repeat pattern are almost endless, I chose to exhibit three designs, which both work in conversation with each other and also stand alone in their own right.
I hope you enjoyed learning more about the work, as I had a ball researching and developing it! These embroideries are part of a limited edition of 5, but there are still some available in the Art + Design Store.
That brings this the Art + Design Store – Friday Feature column to a temporary close, until new work appears in the Store… So, keep your eyes peeled!
