Ctrl/Shift Exhibition MAC Birmingham

An amazing set of work with so much cerebral content- I could never be so inventive – the overall individuality of creative  themes was amazing. I found the Project Space to be a hugely significant component. Richard’s CC film was so well worth watching – made up a little bit for not seeing an actual piece this time. I enjoyed all the sampling and watching the Daisy Collingridge character come alive – a beautiful piece of craftsmanship

Diana Springall

Diana Springall is one of Britain's best-known textile artists. Her 40-year career in textiles includes appointments as a panel lecturer at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and chairman of both the Embroiderers' Guild and the Society of Designer Craftsmen.

MAC
Cannon Hill Park,
Birmingham, B12 9QH
Sales & Information: 0121 446 3232 ,

21st July – 9th September 2018
11am – 5pm – Tue to Sun & Bank Holidays

MAC

Gallery

Exhibiting Artists

Imogen Aust

Control
Materials: Earthenware clay, rope
Techniques: Slip cast, glazed ceramic

Imogen is interested in the use of visual and written instructions which are all around us when learning craft skills in workshops. This work is inspired by the explicit Health & Safety instruction in the signage around machinery in workshop environments.

Lucy Brown

Lippy; Excess; Unruly
Materials: Hair, thread, hairspray, vintage lipstick, foundation powder mesh, lip brush

Techniques: Hand weave, plaited, straightened, washed, stitched, threaded

A series of sculptures exploring the taboo subject of female body/facial hair. Using those make-up cases and tools which have an association with the mouth, upper lip and chin area, Lucy Brown weaves human hair, some of it her own, to replace, envelop, entrap these female ritual objects. 

Isobel Currie

Fly Stitch Autumn Landscape
Materials: Acrylic box, stranded cotton thread, polyester organza, glass beads
Techniques: Hand Stitch

In her continuing exploration of stitching in three dimensions, Isobel is revisiting Fly stitch. This new work represents a significant design shift away from the parallel lines of stitch and geometrical order of her previous work.

Caren Garfen

Room for Improvement
Materials: Modern and vintage dollshouse beds, cotton, silk threads
Technique: Hand stitch

This artwork was inspired by a 2017 Ch4 documentary ‘Wasting Away’. Journalist Mark Austin states that “there are just 202 NHS beds in the whole of the UK for young people with eating disorders”, as against 1.2 million sufferers. 

Hannah Lamb

The Sampling Project

Materials: Textiles (various fibres)
Techniques: Natural dye, hand and machine stitch

Inspired by archival research into katagami (Japanese dyeing stencils), Hannah devised a series of textile experiments that investigate different combinations of natural dyeing, printing and stitching using a wide variety of fabrics. The resulting samples not only demonstrate technical knowledge but also reflect cross-cultural influences and a deeper, intuitive visual ‘handwriting’ that is hard to define.

Jane McKeating

Nine days a week
Materials: Found handkerchiefs of various materials. Mixed hand threads and fabric pigments.
Techniques: Hand stitch and hand paining on found objects alongside fabric manipulation

Margaret is 82 and has dementia Henry died in 2005, but Peggy and Harry continue to explore the world together daily, searching for new flowers and inventing new colours. 

Sue Stone

From Grimsby to Greenpoint & Beyond
Materials: Linen and recycled clothing fabrics,cotton threads, InkTense pencils,acrylic paint
Techniques: Hand and machine stitch.appliqué, piecing, drawing, painting

Inspired by a visit to Greenpoint, Brooklyn the emphasis in this piece shifts slightly away from people, and towards place and contains a multitude of references from a specific place, New York and a specific time period 21/12/16 to 3/01/17.

 

Caroline Bartlett

Imprint
Materials: Linen, porcelain, cotton thread
Techniques: Print, stitch and pleating

Fragile and transient, cloth encapsulates ideas concerned with the regenerative and degenerative processes of life. As clothing, it witnesses routines, rituals and intimacies. The clothing imprinted porcelain occurs as a deposit of memory.

Penny Burnfield

Terra Incognita : dangerous, uncharted territory
Materials: Spun-bonded polyester,correx-type plastic, acrylic paint
Techniques: Painting, machine and hand stitching

Seeking a change from work where ‘the idea’ dictates the visual qualities of the art, Penny allowed form and colour to take precedence.  A folding structure evolved into abstracted mountain ranges. She is interested in the parallel between the compulsion of mountaineers to climb despite the risks and the artist’s compulsion to create something new – even when they do not know how to make it.

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Flox den Hartog Jager

The Four Riders
Materials: Cotton, organza, cotton and silk threads, inks, dye
Techniques: Monoprint, discharge, painting with ink, resist with flower paste, embroidery

After working on the Creation, inspired by the Apocalypse, Flox’ attention shifted from the beginning to the end of history, when God decides to a big CRTL/Alt/Delete, taking control of his creation and deleting everything that has gone wrong.

Emily Jo Gibbs

Portrait of a Metal worker
Materials: Silk organza on linen
Techniques: Hand Stitching

The Value of making is a new body of work, created to celebrate the skill, dexterity and the creative problem solving of people who make things. Ane Christensen’s go to tool is a deep framed piercing saw, Gibbs was thrilled to observe the saws worn handle and the masking tape on the tightening screw, these details put you in the hands of the maker, but on the wall above Ane’s work bench is a magnetic file rack over which are looped her facemask and earplugs, this composition proved irresistible

Debbie Lyddon

Ground Cloth: Yellow Ochre
Materials: Linen, wire, hand-collected and hand-ground yellow ochre, linseed oil, beeswax,found threads
Techniques: Cloth has been sea washed and treated with a protective coating

Ground Cloths introduce new materials and processes to Debbie’s practice. For CTRL/Shift she has researched the traditional way of preserving and waterproofing sails and tarpaulins by ‘dressing’ them with linseed oil, wax and red ochre.

Sumi Perera

Unbuilding Blocks: Variation on a Theme
Materials: 100% cotton Somerset Velvet paper 300g, Thermochromic & etching ink
Techniques: Etching, Aquatint, embossing, screen printing, hand incision, hand and machine stitch 

This interactive work by Sumi is inspired by the book: UNBUILDING (by David Macauley) and a Lego set to build the UN Building. The entire installation is made by controlling and shifting four discarded recycled zinc sheets with thread-like drawings (warp/weft) that represent the fabric of the building. 

Heather Belcher

Fugitive Cloth
Materials: Hand made wool felt and porcelain slip
Techniques: Hand made felt and fired porcelain

This piece of work explores new materials. Felt ‘beakers’ have been soaked in porcelain slip and ‘fired’, concealing their original state. One remaining, unfired beaker lays camouflaged against its’ protective felt base, gently aware of the fossilised fragile pieces to the left.

Nigel Cheney

Lights Out
Materials: Digitally printed cotton, cotton threads, wool/cashmere backing fabric
Techniques: Digital print, hand and machine embroidery

I have taken the Edward Thomas poem ‘Lights Out’, as the starting point for this piece. This shifted research from responding to historical archives and to depict a fictitious character from the First World War lost in the thoughts that overwhelm him in the moments before his death.

Catherine Dormor

Tailor’s Tack
Materials: Digital print on silk satin and organza
Techniques: Machine tailor tacking, photography, digital printing

Tailor’s tacks mark the fabric in preparation for its transformation into a garment: as individual stitches they mark the points for the darts, the buttons, the sleeve. Brought together here in a multitude, the markers become marks across the surface of the fabric, the loops spring and twist out of control as they slip off the machine foot.

Ann Goddard

Triple Reaction: Assemblages

Materials: Recycled mixed media scraps, threads, wire

Techniques: Collecting, gestural painting, layering, wrapping

This is Ann Goddard’s initial response to Jae Maries’ original piece ‘Turbulent Seas’, in the collaborative project ‘Triple Reaction’. The small collaged constructions developed from investigating Jae’s process. Observation of the way in which Jae combines layers of fabric, scraps and stitch, obscuring them with paint and gestural paint marks, informed Ann’s decision to recycle mixed media scraps.

Jae Maries

Triple Reaction:Turbulent Seas
Materials: Calico, oil paint, hand and machine threads, paper
Technique: Stitched and painted panels with applied printed and dyed fabrics

Jae’s Maries’ work ‘Turbulent Seas’ represents the recent history of an English fishing port. The stormy seas suggest the energy and danger of the fishing industry at its peak in the 1950s and then the port’s decline through the successive years.

Shuna Rendel

Triple Reaction :Brushstrokes
Materials: Seed pods, grape stems, chair cane, waxed linen, wire
Technique: Fixed knot netting

“Brushstrokes” is Shuna Rendel’s  response to Jae Maries’ original work “Turbulent Seas”. Shuna has developed the quality of drawing in Jae’s piece and has used natural materials from field and garden to create an eight piece series made up of individual but linked responses.

Eszter Bornemisza

City Skins
Materials: Newspaper, synthetic organza, silk floss, plexiglass tubes

After having created quilts for many years Eszter Bornemisza needed a shift, a change leading to new directions. She started experimenting with sewing on newspaper to achieve lacy transparent look while still keeping her theme of locations and maps.

Daisy Collingridge

Clive
Materials: Viscose, polyester wadding, plastic pellets, cotton
Techniques: Piecing, extreme quilting, dyeing, wood working, pattern cutting, hand stitching

Meet Clive. Clive is part of an ongoing collection of ‘Squishys’ created by Daisy that represent a distinct departure from her fashion design background. She continues to use fashion design techniques and materials but the outcome has shifted.

Dawn Dupree

Flux
Materials: Dye, Pigment, Resist and Flock on Linen and Cotton
Techniques: Silk Screen Printing and Heat Press Processes

Dawn Dupree’s new work explores the process of change and transformation. Influenced by her personal and clinical experience as a psychotherapist Dawn’s work is concerned with the internal landscape, our embodied experience, intersubjectivity and unconscious processes.

Joanna Kinnersly-Taylor

Recast
Materials: Belgian linen,wooden battens, metal T pins
Techniques: Dyed, painted,screen-printed and laser cut

Recast takes as its theme the shifting dynamic of interior space.  As we move through our environment, so light changes and our sense of space alters. Using multiple pieces of cloth in a grid format, has enabled Joanna to work on a larger scale than usual. Whilst maintaining a sense of individual compositions, there is also an overall rhythmic structure.

Sîan Martin

Rolling Out a Carpet for Hope
Materials: Dyed cane and wire, silk and scrim fabrics, acrylic sheets

The inspiration for this textile is a project to re-hydrate the desert areas of Africa. Planting a corridor of saplings to draw water to the surface aims to control desert encroachment. The shift fromdesert to fertile land is an initiative that is a metaphor for the artist’s aims of rejuvenating creative thinking and using new materials and processes to tell the story of change.

Vanessa Rolf

Breathe
Materials: cotton, silk and thread (polyester, rayon, and linen)
Techniques: Hand and machine stitch, appliqué

Breathe is a new work by artist Vanessa Rolf that explores her response to loss; aiming to capture emotions that are hard to articulate despite their universal nature. The work continues to reference cartographic imagery, extending the artist’s exploration into landscape and reflect human experiences.

New Directions In Textile Art