The world is full of seams.
Our life is full of seams.
Seams that split and bind, open and stitch up gaps, mend the tears.
Borders that are transient and enduring, able to be minimized and expanded, mobile and static.
They can be ripped, resewn in a new composition, and ripped yet again.
I call attention to issues underlying the seam line, separation barrier or link, pulling connecting threads and pushing the boundaries of those threads.
My work explores my interest in the natural world, history and process, choice of material and textures, intuitive composition and the essential and overriding dialogue between these.
« My mother was a seamstress.
It was the time before ready-to-wear, she would spot a model in a fashion book and then go to a store to choose the fabric, the color, the pattern. She would touch the material, to see if it was soft or if it would crumple. Linen, cotton, lace, calico, silk, flowers, checks, stripes for a skirt, blouse, dress or jacket. Then I would watch her sit at her table and draw the pattern, pin it to the fabric, and cut the cloth with her sharp scissors. Finally she would thread her needle and seam the pieces with colored and beautiful stitching, to make the garment.
A year ago when I was in France with my mother, I started working on Seams.
It was a difficult year during which my mother, suffering from Alzheimer's disease, gradually lost her abilities, her memory, her house, her independence... I followed from a distance the frightening journey of this courageous and dignified woman facing her world fragmented and disappearing.
So from my studio lost in the Australian bush, I assembled pieces of fabric, paper, pieces of wood, porcelain, fragments, petals, souvenirs. And the seams stretched, the threads tore... until there was only one thread left to hold on to, to continue the journey among bits and pieces...
Seams also talks about the assembly of different worlds, different cultures, different histories.
Seams to gather, unite, bind.
There is finally in the exhibition an installation of 18 panels representing a cartography of the land I inhabit. An effort to assemble places or encounters found along my walks on this ancient land.
An attempt to seam lived experiences, secret stories -forgotten or invented - on an imaginary map. »
