Annual Gardner-Medwin Lecture with Jennifer Collier

About

We are delighted to announce that our Gardner-Medwin Lecture for 2014 will be given by the paper artist Jennifer Collier. Jennifer will speak about her artistic career. Jennifer Collier works with a range of organic materials to create non-functional craft and textile pieces. She uses methods of weaving, waxing, draping, embedding and stitching, to produce objects that are redefined and given a new sense of worth. From this, she encourages the viewer to consider the nature of value and recycling, by integrating found objects, plastics, papers and fabrics. Since graduating in Textiles from Manchester Metropolitan University in 1999, Jennifer has regularly exhibited her work in a number of solo and group shows across the UK and abroad. ‘My practice focuses on creating work from paper; by bonding, waxing, trapping and stitching I produce unusual paper ‘fabrics', which are used to explore the ‘remaking' of household objects. The papers are treated as if cloth, with the main technique employed being stitch; a contemporary twist on traditional textiles. The papers themselves serve as both the inspiration and the media for my work, with the narrative of the books and papers suggesting the forms. I tend to find items then investigate a way in which they can be reused and transformed; giving new life to things that would otherwise go unloved or be thrown away.'