Continued from previous post
“Clothes Maketh The Man 2” – Stitched drawing.
This machine drawing started life as an experiment for my sketch book when I had a spare hour. I wanted to do a visual response to my suit that was 2D, and almost like a complimenting secondary piece to the suit. This is why I chose to title them with the same name. I consider the drawing the sketch that began the suit. Like a fashion designer begins by drawing a model and garment in pencil I just decided to draw on the machine.
I didn’t like the drawing at first, until I really worked into it with the colour threads. The side that is visible is actually the under side of the sewing where the threads become tangled when the tension isn’t right. I preferred this side to the upper side that I could see when I was working because it was accidental. I had very limited control how the underside would look and I liked the idea of the threads tangling and breaking at different points. This was inspiration to keep the threads on my suit hanging on rather than cutting them off and neatening it up.
“Suit of Drama” – stitched drawing and screen print.
I had a silk screen already prepared with images of suit jackets and trousers leftover from when I was making printing in the studio. I was creating paper stencil backgrounds and detailed top layers. These prints were originally meant to be on display In place of this piece. However I decided to use some spare fabric and print rows of the suit, to possibly create some smaller experimental pieces for my sketch book. When I got back to my studio the sewing machine was on the desk and I just thought the fabric with the suit imagery was just asking for some figurative drawing over it. Up until this point only my suit had images of me on it. I needed to keep in mind the idea that my work has always involved images of the body, I didn’t want to suddenly seem like I was becoming a fashion designer, obsessed with clothing. I had to keep the identity of myself in the work.
This piece of work took time to grow on me, but others have made me see its purpose. Its a connection between my previous figurative work and my recent work involving clothing. Its my “bridging the gap” piece of work. I have always wanted to take my work into different areas but I was always afraid of not showing natural evolution and development. I dislike when my work is erratic. I like to develop ideas, and see them developing visually. I personally feel jumping from one concept to another isn’t realistic, it should be natural growth into areas that relate to your core themes.
The piece has some rather obvious inky marks where I hadn’t washed my hands while screen printing. I wished I could some how wash them out without washing all the images away but I can’t. So they have had to become part of the piece. I know that part of the show is to keep the work to gallery standard and to keep the look professional but my work simply is about imperfections so I think it works. The suit is tatty and isn’t sewn perfectly, the stitched drawing is mostly freehand and has ink stains all over it, the dress is torn and ruched, with breaking seams and tears, just as this drawing has ink stains and frayed edges. The imperfections of the works pull them together as a body of work.
