The Gallery of Contemporary Textile Artists
Rhiannon Williams
United Kingdom
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Artist's Statement
Critical Cloth is a body of work lodged in the tradition of hand-stitched patchwork following the English method of piecing over papers. I employ the intensity of repetitive sewing to pose patchwork as a critical practice able to comment upon and critique consumer and late capitalist culture.
The work comprises five hand-stitched lengths each sewn from paper products extracted from modern life - lottery tickets, scratch cards, newspaper reports, administrative paper work, greetings cards and pages from Marcel Proust's novel A la recherche du temps perdu (1908-22). All are cut into hexagonal patches, backed with cloth and stitched in chronological order. Critical Cloth is an ongoing project and the five patchworks remain unfinished. Sewing will continue into the future allowing the physical dimensions of each piece to expand slowly and methodically over time. It is this never-ending accumulation that serves to dramatise capitalist culture re-iterating themes of labour, time, money and loss.
My Loss is My Loss comprises used lottery tickets purchased for £10 a week since 2002. My Loss currently measures five metres in length marking £5,000 spent on Lotto. Money Talks explores similar ideas about ‘money dreaming', but in this case scratch cards are backed with newspaper reports on global finance. A third patchwork, Hoops for My Art to Jump Through takes extracts from administrative paperwork stitched as a co-option of the bureaucracy that both supports and burdens the artist. The Time I'm Taking converts Proust's novel, In Search of Lost Time, into patchwork panels exploring the very nature of time itself. It will take considerably longer to hand sew this book than it took Proust to construct its narrative. The last piece, Horror Vacui – A Blank combines minimalism with kitsch, blocking white paper hexagons alongside highly decorative wrapping papers and cards – the epitome of 21st century consumerism. -
Artist's Statement
Critical Cloth is a body of work lodged in the tradition of hand-stitched patchwork following the English method of piecing over papers. I employ the intensity of repetitive sewing to pose patchwork as a critical practice able to comment upon and critique consumer and late capitalist culture.
The work comprises five hand-stitched lengths each sewn from paper products extracted from modern life - lottery tickets, scratch cards, newspaper reports, administrative paper work, greetings cards and pages from Marcel Proust's novel A la recherche du temps perdu (1908-22). All are cut into hexagonal patches, backed with cloth and stitched in chronological order. Critical Cloth is an ongoing project and the five patchworks remain unfinished. Sewing will continue into the future allowing the physical dimensions of each piece to expand slowly and methodically over time. It is this never-ending accumulation that serves to dramatise capitalist culture re-iterating themes of labour, time, money and loss.
My Loss is My Loss comprises used lottery tickets purchased for £10 a week since 2002. My Loss currently measures five metres in length marking £5,000 spent on Lotto. Money Talks explores similar ideas about ‘money dreaming', but in this case scratch cards are backed with newspaper reports on global finance. A third patchwork, Hoops for My Art to Jump Through takes extracts from administrative paperwork stitched as a co-option of the bureaucracy that both supports and burdens the artist. The Time I'm Taking converts Proust's novel, In Search of Lost Time, into patchwork panels exploring the very nature of time itself. It will take considerably longer to hand sew this book than it took Proust to construct its narrative. The last piece, Horror Vacui – A Blank combines minimalism with kitsch, blocking white paper hexagons alongside highly decorative wrapping papers and cards – the epitome of 21st century consumerism. -
Artist's Statement
Critical Cloth is a body of work lodged in the tradition of hand-stitched patchwork following the English method of piecing over papers. I employ the intensity of repetitive sewing to pose patchwork as a critical practice able to comment upon and critique consumer and late capitalist culture.
The work comprises five hand-stitched lengths each sewn from paper products extracted from modern life - lottery tickets, scratch cards, newspaper reports, administrative paper work, greetings cards and pages from Marcel Proust's novel A la recherche du temps perdu (1908-22). All are cut into hexagonal patches, backed with cloth and stitched in chronological order. Critical Cloth is an ongoing project and the five patchworks remain unfinished. Sewing will continue into the future allowing the physical dimensions of each piece to expand slowly and methodically over time. It is this never-ending accumulation that serves to dramatise capitalist culture re-iterating themes of labour, time, money and loss.
My Loss is My Loss comprises used lottery tickets purchased for £10 a week since 2002. My Loss currently measures five metres in length marking £5,000 spent on Lotto. Money Talks explores similar ideas about ‘money dreaming', but in this case scratch cards are backed with newspaper reports on global finance. A third patchwork, Hoops for My Art to Jump Through takes extracts from administrative paperwork stitched as a co-option of the bureaucracy that both supports and burdens the artist. The Time I'm Taking converts Proust's novel, In Search of Lost Time, into patchwork panels exploring the very nature of time itself. It will take considerably longer to hand sew this book than it took Proust to construct its narrative. The last piece, Horror Vacui – A Blank combines minimalism with kitsch, blocking white paper hexagons alongside highly decorative wrapping papers and cards – the epitome of 21st century consumerism. -
Artist's Statement
Critical Cloth is a body of work lodged in the tradition of hand-stitched patchwork following the English method of piecing over papers. I employ the intensity of repetitive sewing to pose patchwork as a critical practice able to comment upon and critique consumer and late capitalist culture.
The work comprises five hand-stitched lengths each sewn from paper products extracted from modern life - lottery tickets, scratch cards, newspaper reports, administrative paper work, greetings cards and pages from Marcel Proust's novel A la recherche du temps perdu (1908-22). All are cut into hexagonal patches, backed with cloth and stitched in chronological order. Critical Cloth is an ongoing project and the five patchworks remain unfinished. Sewing will continue into the future allowing the physical dimensions of each piece to expand slowly and methodically over time. It is this never-ending accumulation that serves to dramatise capitalist culture re-iterating themes of labour, time, money and loss.
My Loss is My Loss comprises used lottery tickets purchased for £10 a week since 2002. My Loss currently measures five metres in length marking £5,000 spent on Lotto. Money Talks explores similar ideas about ‘money dreaming', but in this case scratch cards are backed with newspaper reports on global finance. A third patchwork, Hoops for My Art to Jump Through takes extracts from administrative paperwork stitched as a co-option of the bureaucracy that both supports and burdens the artist. The Time I'm Taking converts Proust's novel, In Search of Lost Time, into patchwork panels exploring the very nature of time itself. It will take considerably longer to hand sew this book than it took Proust to construct its narrative. The last piece, Horror Vacui – A Blank combines minimalism with kitsch, blocking white paper hexagons alongside highly decorative wrapping papers and cards – the epitome of 21st century consumerism. -
Artist's Statement
Critical Cloth is a body of work lodged in the tradition of hand-stitched patchwork following the English method of piecing over papers. I employ the intensity of repetitive sewing to pose patchwork as a critical practice able to comment upon and critique consumer and late capitalist culture.
The work comprises five hand-stitched lengths each sewn from paper products extracted from modern life - lottery tickets, scratch cards, newspaper reports, administrative paper work, greetings cards and pages from Marcel Proust's novel A la recherche du temps perdu (1908-22). All are cut into hexagonal patches, backed with cloth and stitched in chronological order. Critical Cloth is an ongoing project and the five patchworks remain unfinished. Sewing will continue into the future allowing the physical dimensions of each piece to expand slowly and methodically over time. It is this never-ending accumulation that serves to dramatise capitalist culture re-iterating themes of labour, time, money and loss.
My Loss is My Loss comprises used lottery tickets purchased for £10 a week since 2002. My Loss currently measures five metres in length marking £5,000 spent on Lotto. Money Talks explores similar ideas about ‘money dreaming', but in this case scratch cards are backed with newspaper reports on global finance. A third patchwork, Hoops for My Art to Jump Through takes extracts from administrative paperwork stitched as a co-option of the bureaucracy that both supports and burdens the artist. The Time I'm Taking converts Proust's novel, In Search of Lost Time, into patchwork panels exploring the very nature of time itself. It will take considerably longer to hand sew this book than it took Proust to construct its narrative. The last piece, Horror Vacui – A Blank combines minimalism with kitsch, blocking white paper hexagons alongside highly decorative wrapping papers and cards – the epitome of 21st century consumerism. -
Artist's Statement
Critical Cloth is a body of work lodged in the tradition of hand-stitched patchwork following the English method of piecing over papers. I employ the intensity of repetitive sewing to pose patchwork as a critical practice able to comment upon and critique consumer and late capitalist culture.
The work comprises five hand-stitched lengths each sewn from paper products extracted from modern life - lottery tickets, scratch cards, newspaper reports, administrative paper work, greetings cards and pages from Marcel Proust's novel A la recherche du temps perdu (1908-22). All are cut into hexagonal patches, backed with cloth and stitched in chronological order. Critical Cloth is an ongoing project and the five patchworks remain unfinished. Sewing will continue into the future allowing the physical dimensions of each piece to expand slowly and methodically over time. It is this never-ending accumulation that serves to dramatise capitalist culture re-iterating themes of labour, time, money and loss.
My Loss is My Loss comprises used lottery tickets purchased for £10 a week since 2002. My Loss currently measures five metres in length marking £5,000 spent on Lotto. Money Talks explores similar ideas about ‘money dreaming', but in this case scratch cards are backed with newspaper reports on global finance. A third patchwork, Hoops for My Art to Jump Through takes extracts from administrative paperwork stitched as a co-option of the bureaucracy that both supports and burdens the artist. The Time I'm Taking converts Proust's novel, In Search of Lost Time, into patchwork panels exploring the very nature of time itself. It will take considerably longer to hand sew this book than it took Proust to construct its narrative. The last piece, Horror Vacui – A Blank combines minimalism with kitsch, blocking white paper hexagons alongside highly decorative wrapping papers and cards – the epitome of 21st century consumerism.
Contact Details:
W: www2.derby.ac.uk/dvcrg
