Exhibition
Sweet Plums
14 Oct 2015 – 14 Nov 2015
Regular hours
- Wednesday
- 12:00 – 17:00
- Thursday
- 12:00 – 17:00
- Friday
- 12:00 – 17:00
- Saturday
- 12:00 – 17:00
Address
- 11 Church Street
- London
- NW8 8EE
- United Kingdom
British artist Susan Stockwell unwinds the recurring themes and motives of her work and practice, considering a range of issues including identity, geo-politics, migration and trade. Subverting and appropriating maps, money and a selection of everyday household objects these works suggest the ‘other,’ a separateness.
About
As world-wide conflicts are creating mass upheaval and migration, vast numbers of people are undertaking perilous journeys to seek refuge. Using embroidery, silk and other delicate fabrics, Stockwell highlights both femininity and the heirloom, private and family intimacy, things often taken for granted until lost.
Stockwell has made a new body of work from old silk bobbins and thread. Red strings of wool, cotton and elastic - some of them smooth and gentle, others rough and worn draw the eye. They run parallel, intersect and end up in junctions from where they take new directions. Inscriptions and old marks on the bobbins narrate these junctions and lead us to wonder about their origin. What is their story? Stockwell subtly interrogates the value of these items, and their travels from various places, their historical significance, tracing them back to colonial trade. These repeated themes are mapped out in various ways; an airplane route map or crossing underground lines, pins on a map of personal memories or documenting larger scale migrations. In these times where we are facing one of the largest migrations in recent history, the issue of open borders is again in question. Her technique of subverting cartography and mapping is clearly in tune with the pressing questions of our time.
Works that Stockwell made during her recent residency at the Royal Shakespeare Company complements the new installation. These pieces were partly inspired by Shakespeare’s plays, Othello and the Merchant of Venice and again she plays with questions of trade, material, power and social condition. Used handkerchiefs are stained with coffee and embroidered with images drawn from 16th century maps of London, Stratford and Venice. The down-stairs gallery will be taken over by an installation of sails, which engage the viewer physically by obstructing the way into the gallery space. As if walking through a three-dimensional abstract painting the installation forces the viewer to navigate their own course and to reflect upon the world.
