Re-store Exhibition

Re-store is focused on the Grade 2 Listed, Wellington Hangar at Brooklands Museum prior to its planned dismantling, relocation and restoration.  In response to the structure and the contents of the hangar the exhibition explores ideas of restoration, decay, and fragility of existence.  

As part of the 6plus2 Art Collective these are my works for the exhibition (7-21 June 2014).

The work focusses on the unnoticed in terms of physicality and process. Tiny fragments of the building preserved like relics of memory; and the role of women, the amalgamation of domestic skills with industrial process highlights their often unrecognised contribution.

Hangar I

Hand made artists’ book in presentation box : iron gall ink, watercolour, vintage illustrations, rust fragment. 

From an oxidised fragment the subtle colours and textures are rendered into a tiny keepsake.

 Hangar II

Hand made artists’ book : 

rust fragments darned on linen with vintage thread, salt water crystals, digital print on aviation tissue.  

Found fragments of friable rust are encrusted with salt crystals, like the tears of those for whom the physicality of the hangar will never be the same. The delicate darning attempts to repair what time has destroyed and what can only be preserved in the memory.  Images of the hangar’s frailty are emphasised by translucent aviation paper, once used to construct the earliest flight.

8 stitches per inch

Hand made paper fragments with blind embossed inch squares, each hand sewn with linen thread, 8 stitches per inch.

Eight stitches per inch was the optimum stitch rate for the linen carapace on the Wellington Bomber.  The women who sewed were crucial, any deviation meant the canvas would tear away during flight.

“all I have left is time, 

and in the pale light I am still waiting.”

Vintage linen map fragments, thread, embroidery hoops.

Inspired by annotated aviation maps, the hoops reminiscent of propellers and planned bomb sites.  For those left behind, the stress of the unknown location and timing of bombing flights is alleviated by the repetitive action of stitching; the loose threads a tether to home.

“and when he flies at night I sit and sew and follow him in the map of my mind : every stitch drawing him back to me.” 

Vintage map fragments, thread, embroidery hoops.

installation:

Aurelian

The aurelian collections were again born from a desire to read a book in a different way - I am very fond of the book as a physical object and here hundreds of butterfiles, caterpillars and chrysalis are hand cut and reassembled in the style of the Victorian collectors.

The book cover is converted into a box to house these very personal collections that have a feel of private wonder.

Under glass

Miniature worlds, condensed into a single sculpture that could be held in your palm.  

The inhabitants spill out, fragile and ethereal, not subject to the seasons or decay.

The History of a Tortoise : from the diary of naturalist Gilbert White who was very fond of this tortoise Timothy; allowing him to roam the garden and dig his hibernarium where he wished.

Meadow

Vestiges

 Linked to the Pyre series, Vestiges too only reside in the memory but are born of a quieter destruction.

The books are again folded and encased in plaster, then soaked with water and released from their entrapment.  

However a ghost of their print remains embedded, 

odd tantalising words and phrases.

The resulting sculptures are strangely familiar, their organic structures at home in the water that created them.