Yumoto House’ Floor to ceiling Silver Yarn /sound/ drawing installation Japan 2015
In 2015 I was invited to exhibit at the Nakanojo Contemporary Art Biennale in Japan. The theme of the Biennale is to make links between local traditions and contemporary art. Working closely with the community and assisted by Megumi Baba & Dale McGuiness to install a yarn installation with drawings and sound in a 200-year-old Yumoto House, which had a past life as a silk farm and a hospital. Through detailed observation of the environment, surfaces and placement of objects, I was re-tracing and tracking the movements by previous inhabitants. The yarn weaves through the space creating forms between the internal support structures. By arranging the space into various sculptural forms and planes, the audience can explore different pathways through the installation looking into the in-between spaces. The yarn’s reflective surface catches the changes of daylight, which accentuate the drawn lines throughout the space, this thin material creates the illusion of mass. I observed how the audience reacted to the environment and how the work intervened with their senses and body language. The ambient sound guided the audience into the space directing their movement and the act of looking. The different lengths of the yarn strings are represented by pitches from across the audio spectrum, from high harp notes to low bass frequencies.
Site specific yarn installation Wilson Gallery Cheltenham 2014-15 11m
One of the largest installations was at the Wilson gallery, I used 4,000 meters of black viscose yarn spanning three stories of the building linking the new gallery to the old museum, This was exhibited for one year and viewers interacted with the work by running their hands across the threads, and their response was that it reminded them of a harp so I invited a composer Toby Bricheno to see the work and we worked collaboratively on a sound piece which was produced with the video.
In ‘Tug of War’ Ginestrelle Assisi Italy 2014 the silver yarn installation attached to a vertical tree and a log lying horizontally, creating a curved form between a tree and a log, a connection between the living and the dead,referencing our relationships to our ancestors. The work created the illusion of shafts of light through the trees as the light changed at different times of the day. Lines, shimmers and rhythms were developed through a variety of drawingprocesses, using ink, charcoal, gouache and silver leaf.
‘The Palace Curve’ site-specific installatio Palazzo Ducale in Atina, Italy 2013.
During this residency I had to respond to the old town of Atina.By finely threading the top of the gates with black yarn Iexplore how the role of contemporary art is negotiated in a ‘non art’ site, by creating a spatial curve based on the structure ofthe gates, and architecture of the space. The viewer could walk under the curve, which was above head height and touchthe yarns.