SPRING 2021

LOST & FOUND

ABSTRACT:

I start with a drawing, feeling into every line, allowing my pencil or crayon to guide the action. Unconsciously letting form take shape. I love the naive line-work this produces. It’s a slow and unwinding process; I unravel into the drawing. Influenced only by whatever energy may be around me, and the meditative process of drawing itself.

I then transfer each drawing onto canvas, where I repetitively stitch the image into form. Reenacting those rhythmic lines as they came to me before, thereby prolonging the performative action of my artistic practice. The intricateness, thoughtfulness and intention of each stitch are indicative of the time spent sitting submissively over each piece.

The action of sewing these pieces, for me, brings me back to my childhood. Years of playing in my grandmother’s studios, piled high with different fabrics, buttons, & zippers; I learned how to create. And the inherent femininity of needle-work itself, the gender-specific roles we tie to it, lends a softness to my practice, which does not live in the drawings alone.

My Spring Collection – Lost & Found is just that. It’s about finding this style of work, or rather, coming back to something that has been with me my entire life. Often found with a sewing needle in my hand since the age that I could read.

Weaving thread through fabric then is more of an instinctual gesture, an extension of the self, more than any external narrative I could produce or conjure.

The drawings and line-work an ever present extension of the evocative nature of child-like naivety.

The colours, reminiscent of spring itself, convey the stark contrast between the ending of winter as harsh grey lines juxtapose against sharp bursts of colour. Living in Canada, I am always happily transfixed by the bright colours that spring brings with it. Nature reminding us that a rebirth always postcedes the fallowness of winter with its hues of lilacs, hyacinths, green buds, bright turquoise blues, red tulips, marigolds and the sun.