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Textiles at the British Art Show 8 - The Open College of the Arts

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Textiles at the British Art Show 8

This blog post discusses my recent visit to the British Art Show 8 in relation to textile materials and techniques. The aim of the post is to illustrate how contemporary art practitioners are using textile materials and techniques to explore creative possibilities. As the Programme Leader for textiles I am keen for OCA textile students to understand that they can develop their own practice by exploring a wide range of art and design including fine art disciplines. I would also suggest that all students at the OCA explore the work of other disciplines to broaden their outlook and expand knowledge. For the purposes of this blog I am looking at British Art Show artists who have used textile materials or techniques to highlight the ways contemporary artists use both mediums and methods but if you are a textile student visiting the show I suggest you explore all the art works.

The artists and works I will be looking at are

  • Caroline Achaintre, Mother George, 2015
  • Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, Trace evidence 2, Freud’s Qashqa’i rug, 2015
  • Alexandre da Cunha, Kentucky, 2010
  • Linder, Diagrams of love: Marriage of eyes, 2015
  • Ciara Phillips, Consider it a valid job, 2015

Caroline Achaintre, Mother George, 2015

Caroline Achaintre, Mother George, 2015.

This is a large-scale hand-tufted wool rug with an uneven surface where the tufts have been cut at different lengths. The image is based on a tribal mask in a controlled colour palette of blues, browns and black with highlighted areas in red and yellow. With the many dangling yarns the image appears washed with water as the yarns appear as paint drips. The highly textured surface and limited colour palette disguise the face, appearing at first as an abstract piece. This revealing of the image is almost haunting. The artist is interested in methods from the applied arts, in this case rug tufting because of the “intense physical progression” that they require.

Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, Trace evidence 2, Freud’s Qashqa’I rug, 2015

Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, Trace evidence 2, Freud’s Qashqa’I rug, 2015

A large scale unique Jacquard woven tapestry accompanies a slide projector showing numerous 35mm slides. These being high-resolution radiographic quartz images of strands of hair and fragments of skin particles left by Freud’s patients on his couch. The artists further explored their findings by transforming one of these images into a tapestry, whose scale and texture recalls the original rug that still covers Freud’s iconic couch. This for me is a fascinating way to investigate a subject. At first sight the tapestry appears to be a well balanced brightly coloured abstract but when you learn about how it has come about it is full of meaning and interest.

Alexandre da Cunha, Kentucky, 2010

Alexandre da Cunha, Kentucky, 2010

What intrigues me and drew me to this piece is the material it is made from. At a distance it is obviously a textile but it is difficult to tell what the material is and the nature of the repeat pattern. Kentucky is constructed from mop heads dyed and woven together in the manner of a modernist tapestry. The artist works with collected objects that he then arranges into ‘a collage of three-dimensional elements’. I like that the artist has included the printed tapes that’s purpose is to hold the mops fibres together, written on them are the weight and code of the product. These purely practical items have been used to highlight areas of the pattern.

Linder, Diagrams of love Marriage of eyes, 2015

Linder, Diagrams of love: Marriage of eyes, 2015

This piece is a gun-tufted rug based on the pattern of a carpet from the 1970’s. It is adorned with representations of the third eye reminiscent of the surrealists in a sumptuous colour palette and backed with gold. The rug is spiral that hangs into the centre of the room illustrating how a textile piece can be any shape or size. The pattern isn’t a repeat but a tumbling collection of imagery and abstract forms. Its soft texture enhances the wild psychedelic mood of the work.

Ciara Phillips, Consider it a valid job, 2015

Ciara Phillips, Consider it a valid job, 2015

Printed onto linen, Consider it a valid job is one of a number of screen prints the artist has worked on with local groups from Leeds, Wakefield and Mirfield in West Yorkshire. The prints are based on the Irregular Bulletin, a newsletter produced by the radical educator and artist Sister Mary Corita Kent with her colleague Sister Magdalene Mary, in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. Ciara Phillips uses the medium of print to instigate discussion around social and political concerns. Strongly graphic in design the image uses a blend of monochrome depictions of internal spaces and the human form, overlaid with shapes in strong colours. The result is a balanced image with a striking yet obscured message that draws the viewer to want to learn more.

The exhibition tours the country (see venues and dates below) and there will be OCA study visits to each venue starting 14 November 2015 at Leeds with tutor Mark Clough. Students can sign up for the Leeds event by emailing enquiries@oca.ac.uk

Leeds Art Gallery
9 October 2015 – 10 January 2016

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Inverleith House, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, and Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh
13 February 2016 – 8 May 2016

Norwich University of the Arts and Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery
24 June 2016 – 4 September 2016

John Hansard Gallery, University of Southampton and Southampton City Art Gallery
8 October 2015 – 14 January 2017


Posted by author: Rebecca Fairley

One thought on “Textiles at the British Art Show 8

  • I viewed the rug-Linder, Diagrams of love: Marriage of eyes, 2015-at the Scottish Modern Gallery of Art. As a work of fine art, it is almost sculptural and is very effective. The warm, voluptuous nature of the medium correlates closely with the subject of love/marriage. The long lashes of the eyes and the way it is draped in an undulating fashion results in a very three dimensional piece.

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