My fellow artists and the odd friend will quite often send me a photo of or web reference of the Japanese/American artist Ruth Asawa. The medium, layering and the transparency of wire working techniques in my works evokes a similar feel to Asawa’s work.
I began working in wire in earnest in 2004 while studying an experimental textiles unit.
Taking a class at Albany Summer School with celebrated WA jeweller Jill Parnell, I learnt nail knitting, braiding and Viking knit and then translated those processes into large scale knitted sculptures made from fencing wire.
Obtaining the book Textile Techniques in Metal by American artist Arline Fisch I proceeded to work my way through some of the research and techniques, adding crochet, weaving and embroidery to my concept of creating archival metal textiles.
At this time there was very little written information available online and even less imagery on similar works to what I was doing. I first became aware of Asawa’s work in 2006, along with the Slovakian artist Blanka Sperkova as part of my research leading into BA graduation works.
The natural inclination of the wire acting like a textile combined with the rigidity of it, led me to the work of mathematician Dr Daina Taimina and her exploration of hyperbolic structures and I began playing with Klein bottles, Mobius and Boys surfaces and the hyperbolic plane.
Whilst I could not work in this area of sculpture without acknowledging these sculptors who have gone before, along with Laurin Sundin and Mary Lee Hu it has been a conscious determination to find my own style and conceptual basis within these techniques and continue to expand on them. This piece is a combination of all these influences.
- Subject Matter: sculpture, hanging, knitted
- Collections: Sculpture - Studio Size