As an artist who draws from the subconscious, it is safe to say that making work under the restrictions of a pandemic severely impacted my practice. The necessity of existing primarily within drab domestic spaces, and receiving social interaction exclusively through social media meant I was finding it difficult to create, and thus I spent this year seeking out spaces in which both of these methods of existence feel new, exciting, and transformative.
A virtual existence is a necessity, but as an artist who enjoys making tangible objects, it is deeply unsatisfying; hours spent with little to show for it. Thus, I utilised knitting to archive and record the images I was both imagining and experiencing in online spaces. At first it was a tongue in cheek idea- hand knitting and virtual existence seem like chalk and cheese, yet I unearthed many similarities between the two. Now I seek to create a dialogue between them both- feeding my visual ideas through the computer and using my knitting needles to create an output, just as a TV or computer screen would do.
Visually I want to bring the surreal and limitless creative possibilities of 3D rendering and the digital realm into reality as solidly as possible. Elements of the domestic space serve to ground the fantastical landscape, enough so they feel familiar, but are still strange enough to transport someone to another place. I also seek to do this through the use of the “doorway”- something I implemented in the creation of my largest tapestry. The intense visual otherness of the tapestry overwhelms, and contrasts with its muted physical surroundings to create the possibility of truly stepping into and experiencing the strange realm of the tapestry.
As a fully vaccinated artist, I am excited to take my new knitted skills into the public sphere, and am particularly interested in converting images into wearable objects, to be worn in these old but new places. No longer shall my tapestries be designed for digital viewing but for tangible utility!
