My main thread for the dissertation is the use of textiles within contemporary art with the added thought of how memories and history are often associated with the fabrics used.
I remember a lecture we had on "Outsider art" and how I felt uncomfortable critiquing their work...as it was not meant solely as art but as a way of expressing their feelings, a visual personal diary, medicinal..... I have recently taken another look at their work but in a new light and realised it should be looked at on a more positive level and that they were able to express themselves in a way that is now classed as art is quite amazing.
what first blew me away was...
...Agnes Richter, a patient in a mental asylum in austria in the 1890's, spent her days embroidering text on to the jacket of her hospital uniform in attempts to record her life story. agnes, who had been a seamstress before her incarceration, painstakingly embroidered onto every part of the surface, both inside and out, sometimes so intensively that the text was illegible....
Hand embroidered life....
...the painstakingly detailed way she transformed something institutional into such an expression of herself is fascinating and inspiring. How something as mundane as a hospital gown can be turned into such a beautiful piece of work through such horrific circumstances leaves me totally in awe.
I can see how Messager and Bourgeois are both influence by this....
...loads more to follow
...a summer of research to be shared with you all!
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