covered
embroidery with cotton thread on voile, 50 x 38 cm, 2023
Covered consists in five overlapped hand-made embroideries on voile. The images were created from details of polaroid pictures of the artist's parents. Without identifying the figures, it aims to create a subjective enrivonment of intimacy, by also inviting the viewer's touch to peek through the fabrics, to penetrate these layers of intimate touch that are overlapped.
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covered at the ma fine art: drawing pop up exhibition @ camberwell college of arts, december 2023
process
“In the first tutorial I was told to experiment, open up to new ideas and take risks. As someone who tends to overthink, this is not always easy, but it’s a desire from a long time ago (not only as an artist, but as human being). I can’t divide myself, but I want to try this change.
I can start by doing something without thinking about the final form. Layers of hands, layers of touches, layers of lines. Letting space between, space to breathe, space that can be a separation, space that can be an approach; space in-between. What’s between the layers?
Relationship of one with oneself. Or between different people. Duality. Possibility. Levels of contact. Intertwined.” (19.10.23)
artist's journal, 2023
process, 2023
The intention, from the beginning, was to create layers that communicated with each other - that, interfering with each other, would create a new layer, a new image. For that reason, the surface chosen was a piece of voile, a translucid fabric that allows the viewer to see through it.
The process started by drawing these figures in tracing paper, so I could overlap the images/create layers since the first step. Then, the drawings were transfered from the paper to the fabric, with a pen appropriated for cloth, that comes off with heat. This was once again a process of overlapping surfaces.
“To see my hands stitching behind the transparent fabric is to be always conscious about my bodily existence (my presence).” (20.10.23)
process, 2023
“The embroideries with voile will be on layers, but I’m still deciding if they should touch each other (making it possible for the viewer to touch it as well, to peek through each layer) or already separated in a small distance. Xuan (MA painting student and personal friend) visiting the studio and peeking through the fabrics gave me this insight. To invite the touch of the viewer, exchange of intimacy.” (24.11.23)
Working with the subject of the everyday and intimacy, I feel that I'm aware of my surroundings all the time. Receiving a visit in the studio made me reflect on how people could participate and engage in these intimate scenes, by touching the fabrics and trying to reach what's behind, what's more difficult to access. This notion of "added touch" was the insight I needed to finish the work and think about its display. To leave the surface unprotected, by displaying the delicate fabrics on the wall, could also signify another form of vulnerability; not only present on the subject, but also in the materiality.
During the last group critique of the term, I was told that the height and the position of the work in the pop up show (below eye level, right before the entrance of the small room in the studio) makes a statement by itself. In that context, there was movement added to the work - not only the movement of the sewing process. Every body that passed by the work made it move and reveal a little bit of the layers behind the first one. The viewer's body was added to the work even if not directly touching it.
testing forms of installation, 2023