Preparing for the exhibition at John Jones and for others I constantly examine and consider my practise. A question that comes up from time to time is why I use embroidery within my works. I studied Mixed Media Textiles at The RCA and managed to get taught by the Professor Graham Crowley of the painting department as well which helped me immensely with my progress and development as an artist. Since then I have met with a number of interesting artists and art professionals who have educated me as well along the way.
Reasons I use embroidery;
Embroidery creates intimacy but it is an isolated pursuit. The spaces I paint combine both these elements, lonely places, yet communal.
The structures, the lines, the intricacy and meticulousness of the stitching are a contrast to the restless and agitated places depicted and the expressiveness of the paint.The alluring qualities or the embroidery threads are used to emphasise the fragility of the spaces depicted.
I wish to challenge conventional use of embroidery as a decorative and safe medium by placing it within paintings which depict unconventional beauty and bleak spaces.
A means to create complex, multilayered surfaces and combine techniques
Embroidery is used to reflect the organic subject matter as it is organic subject matteropportunity to find new freedoms and expressions in painting.
The printed floral farics I use in my works are historically and culturally conscious and symbolic.
A former tutor once wrote this for an exhibition of mine and I thought it was marvellous and articulated a lot of my feelings, for Textiles is a realm in which there is a lot of cute and decorative things and not taken very seriously. My work is concept driven and quite firmly art, whilst craft based in terms of painting and the embroidery in the sense that it is skilled.
‘Textiles are usually associated with decoration, pattern and colour, a soft, warm, feminine material. They are also an undervalued, underappreciated and misunderstood medium. The work of Rosalind Davis challenges the preconceptions that accompany the word, Textiles. Davis subverts the medium and presents us with an ominous, threatening world exposing us to post apocalyptic painted landscapes. The only evidence of human existence is rendered through her use of embroidery. It’s a dark and dirty tactile world that you will be glad not to inhabit. Textiles can be powerful stuff. ’
Freddie Robins Artist and Tutor in Constructed Textiles at the Royal College of Art, London
