C/J Chloé Maratta and Joanne Robertson

About

Reflecting their shared interests in clothing, both artists have been invited to work with artefacts from Nottingham Trent University’s (NTU) Fashion Map Archive, a unique collection of garments and accessories purchased from high street retailers since 2000.

Maratta embeds her practice into her life via a process of gathering clothing and ephemera that she encounters and experiences on a daily basis. Materials are collaged into styled outfits and extended into photography, photo-collage and sculpture.

Robertson works predominantly with painting that frequently extends beyond the canvas to found objects. Presenting racks of clothing alongside her paintings, Robertson objectifies garments in order to emulate the conditions of abstract painting – form, colour, surface and materiality. She’s currently touring her music in New Zealand, and answered a few questions from Undertheradar.co.nz, in which she refers to the upcoming exhibition here at the gallery, as well as discussing the process of collaborating with other artists, and the strong link between her music and visual practices.

Through art production, music and fashion, both artists convey an immediacy and irreverence towards various forms of cultural and social hierarchy, making the involvement of NTU’s high-street fashion archive all the more poignant.