Political Luggage, Recycled Materials and Layered Stitches
Anthony Amoako-Attah, Take me Home II, 2022. Photo Birgitta Huse
“Nnorom draws upon materiality in a unique way, dedicating his art to textile recycling and a sociological reflection on the human condition.”
“Ekta Kaul’s narrative cartographic textiles explore place, history and belonging through stitch.”
“Kettle’s work contributes to a tradition of thread narrative in Britain, which began in the 11th century with the Bayeux tapestry, and with the histories of women who have long communicated their lives and experiences through textile work.”
“Cecilia Charlton: Wormhole Mosaic (Sweat of the Sun. Tears of the Moon)”
Political Luggage, Recycled Materials and Layered Stitches
Anthony Amoako-Attah, (from bottom to top), Take me Home I,2022; Take me Home V (The Corner Stone II) 2023 and Take me Home II, 2022. Photo Birgitta Huse
Suitcases and bags are made for travelling. If suitcases and bags are made out of glass like the ones by artist Anthony Amoako-Attah they are definitely not meant to be filled with clothes and other belongings and to be used for a usual kind of journey. Instead, these pieces of luggage aim to transport a political message. Anthony Amoako-Attah whose works are presented by Bullseye Projects says: “I manipulate glass to look like woven fabric by screen printing and kilnforming with glass powders. My work explores themes related to the effects of migration, dislocation, and personal identity using traditional Kente designs and Adinkra symbols from Ghana.” Kente cloth is inseparable from Ghanaian identity. It has a long tradition of communicating political messages in the sense that especially elaborate Kente cloth represents the high status of its wearer, usually royalty.
Amoako-Attah’s Kente glass luggage kicked off my journey through this year’s Collect 2023, the international fair for contemporary craft and design presented by the Crafts Council at Somerset House. During my personal “Textile tour” I visited seventeen of the nearly forty galleries which exhibit works made in the last five years in order to see the recent creations of thirty-three textile artists. Furthermore, I had a look at the so called Collect Open spaces in which artists “showcase and realise an ambitious project that takes creative practice to the next level of their professional career”.
Samuel Nnorom, Growth amidst Storm, 2022. Photo Birgitta Huse
Samuel Nnorom, the Nigerian textile artist and rising talent presented by French Galerie Revel, “poetically crosses tapestry-like sculpture and pre-loved Ankara wax fabric” in his works. In 2023 he was shortlisted for the Brookfield Properties Craft Award. The award “recognizes an artist who significantly contributes to the story of contemporary craft and making in the UK.” Galerie Revel resumes about the artist and his work: “Nnorom draws upon materiality in a unique way, dedicating his art to textile recycling and a sociological reflection on the human condition. […] He is interested in the identity and meaning that fabrics represent especially the Ankara fabric which is mostly consumed in his local community and west Africa. Fabric suggests to him a social structure or social organization that weaves humanity into society; in the case of “fabric of society” or “social fabric.”
The city as a place where a growing number of people live is a theme tackled by Beatrice Mayfield with her hand embroidered work “Nature of the City”, 2023, shown at Ruup & Form. The artist captures moments of city life in her 25x15 cm cotton organdie works using beads, threads, and fabric paint. “Nature in the City” provokes feelings as they are common when we move around in the city every day. Looking at the artworks we recognize what is going on. In one piece I saw main streets and side streets with traffic for example. Coloured beads maybe resemble the red lights from the cars and buses we see while commuting during evening rush hours after sunset. Another of Mayfield’s small works inspires me to think about people gathering at one point on a square.
Beatrice Mayfield, Nature of the City, 2023. Photo Birgitta Huse
Ekta Kaul, Riverside Walk, 2022. Photo Birgitta Huse
Ekta Kaul who is known for her “narrative cartographic textiles that explore place, history and belonging through stitch” envisions a “Riverside Walk”, 2022, with Kantha stitch on linen and cotton. This walk reminds me of my walks at the Thames which I use as a way to practise mindfulness. Kaul attracts our attention with some details. Pink and white dots highlight a small area in the river. It might be a boat. A stitched number near one of the bridges might stand for one of the info plaques at the Thames riverside like the one with a historical timeline at London Bridge near Southwark Cathedral. Mayfield’s and Kaul’s textile artworks are food for thought and inspire reflection firstly upon how we look at our environment while moving in the city and secondly upon how our relationship with what we see is. The Ruup & Form Gallery homepage says: “Ruup & Form curates In Quest for Harmony for Collect International Art Fair 2023. The exhibition delves into the many facets of emotional upheavals, political and social turbulences. The artists respond with their personal sense of equilibrium, asking questions through their medium.”
Sanaa Gateja. Photo Birgitta Huse
The theme of waste and its use during creative processes is clearly a focus at Collect 2023. One of my personal highlights are Sanaa Gateja’s, 50Golborn, big colourful sceneries consisting of beads made of recycled paper which completely cover up the barkcloth beneath them. Apart from enjoying the colourful landscape built by Gateja it is the complete covering of the natural barkcloth with recycled paper beads which causes me to think about the consequences innumerable tons of waste we produce have for nature. Designer Elodie Blanchard’s material exploration and repurposing transforms small scraps of textiles, plastic bags, mylar balloons and snack packaging into parts of flowerlike textile explosions on the walls of SEEDS Gallery through layering and stitching together.
Elodie Blanchard, Bouquet 23. Photo Birgitta Huse
At this year’s Collect Alice Kettle, represented by Candida Stevens Gallery, received the Brookfield Properties Craft Award 2023 in partnership with the Crafts Council. The gallery explains the following online about the textile artist: “Alice Kettle is internationally renowned for being a pioneer of her art form, with an application and process that makes her a unique creator and maker of art. Her work is regarded as boundary breaking and contemporary in its process, yet it also evokes a deep sense of the fundamental with its themes. Kettle depicts contemporary events and the experience of being in the world in her stitched tales. […] Kettle’s work contributes to a tradition of thread narrative in Britain, which began in the 11th century with the Bayeux tapestry, and with the histories of women who have long communicated their lives and experiences through textile work.”
Choosing Kettle for the Brookfield Properties Craft Award 2023 is yet another unmissable statement of recognition of the importance of textile art not only in the art and craft dealers and collectors world. Kettle’s use of recycled textile and her creative transformation of this material into expressive pieces of art via layered stitches continues to impress.
Alice Kettle, Vira in my Garden, 124x230 cm (detail), 2022. Photo Birgitta Huse
That seemingly “ordinary embroidery” at first sight can have a message for us is demonstrated at the fair. In case you have never seen Matt Smith’s “subversive embroideries” (or you would like to see one again) you can do so at Cynthia Corbett Gallery. Cecilia Charlton’s hand-embroidered wool yarn and acrylic paint on canvas over painted and gilded canvas “Wormhole Mosaic (Sweat of the Sun. Tears of the Moon)”, 2022, sized 176 x 170 cm calls our attention already when seen from the entrance of Candida Steven’s Gallery. Cecilia Charlton “creates hand-sewn embroideries that engage with the formal histories of abstraction to explore a broad range of themes including the cosmos, memory, and current events. […] her artworks achieve an optically challenging and playful approach, questioning the hierarchy between painting and textiles” – the gallery website tells us.
Cecilia Charlton, Wormhole Mosaic, 2022. Photo Birgitta Huse
The examples described here can serve as some “textile appetizers” only as they are a very small glimpse into what is to be seen at Collect 2023. The fair offers a wealth of ideas which materialised in ceramic, wood, glass, paper, lacquer and more, and for me most interestingly, in textiles. Several Collect Open stages add to this rich offer with special and innovative works.
Collect 2023 can be seen until Sunday 5 March 2023, 6pm at Somerset House, London.
Live on Artsy.net for all until 12 March 2023.