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August 3, 2024 In

Life You Like A Prayer 2024

Embroidered shroud – macro photography transfer on reclaimed, pigment-dyed fabric, branches, leaves, butterflies, bird nest, feather-made bird, clay frog, soil
Installation size variable

Building on the idea of conversations between the known and unknown, possibility and stagnation and ultimately life and so-called death, this installation features a shroud as its focus.

The 226 x 112 cm l 89 x 44 in fabric piece is made from well-worn, reclaimed bedsheets hand-dyed with graphite and pigment, photo transfers of macro-photographed decaying plant-life hand-stitched with silk backing. It is suspended away from the wall and draped in front of a collection of tree branches, dried leaves, butterflies, stones, a bird nest with sleeping bird and a single clay frog who also appears to be sleeping.

Close to four hundred dots were embroidered with turquoise wool, spelling in braille the following lines from a poem by 13th-century mystic poet Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi.
‘I have come to drag you out of yourself and take you in my heart. I have come to bring out the beauty you never knew you had and lift you like a prayer to the sky.’

For me, these words encapsulate what it means to really see beneath and beyond the surface of our lives; to hold space for grief, loss and vulnerability; to embrace with all our senses the living and that which has passed on from the material world yet is held precious in our living memory.

 

 

Photography by Toni Hafkenscheid & the artist

August 3, 2024 In

After Life 2024

Peach tree, hosta leaves, assorted ephemera
Size variable

The sculptural installation After Life, which features a well-preserved peach tree suspended upside down in the centre of the gallery space, suggests ideas of transcendence, being uprooted and displaced while still possessing a strange elegance. The tree lightly turns from the gentle airflow of visitors to the space, shadows dancing above a gathering of circular forms arranged on the floor below it.

With the nest of dried hosta leaves that extends from a truncated centre branch, this piece works as a metaphor for the vast gifts that spill from life, even after the physical form is expired. Or about entanglement and interconnectedness, about beauty in all its forms. After Life disrupts observational expectations, presenting an invitation to embrace all aspects of the human experience; to shed the muddy confines of fear and delight in the wonderment of our existence.

 

Photography credit Toni Hafkenscheid & the artist

August 3, 2024 In

One Hibiscus, Two Seasons 2023

Collected & dried hibiscus petals
Seven discs ranging in size from 7.4 to 53.3 cm l 3 to 21 in

 

For two consecutive summers I collected every flower with its richly pigmented petals from one single hibiscus plant situated within view from my studio. I carefully pressed and wrapped them individually in parchment paper huddled into a paper box. After pinning some of them to a wall in my work space, thinking ahead to the scheduled exhibition, I realized they would not survive too many trials of this process so I had the idea to sew each petal to cut out circular shapes from discarded screen door material.

After many attempts and iterations, this seems to have worked to highlight both the lush colour and delicate texture of the petals held together vulnerably but effectively.

 

 

 

Photography credit Toni Hafkenscheid