Shellfinder (COVID-19)

This embroidered artwork is one a series of artworks created during the COVID-19 pandemic as a response to current events. It is developed directly from the artist’s life drawings produced in collaboration with a life model while both the artist and model were socially isolating at home. The finished piece is individually handmade using freehand machine embroidery with pre-loved fabrics.

The artwork measures 20 x 30cm and will be supplied mounted on matt board unless opting for framing.

“In these thread drawings I explore the experience of being a woman: empowerment,strength, sensuality, self love, vulnerability and our connections with others. My aim is to convey a sense of a woman's inner landscape and her connection to her environment.

I choose to work in thread, using the sewing machine as a drawing tool, as I love the extremely expressive quality of the thread drawn line. All of my pieces begin as pencil/ mixed media drawings on paper, usually working from the nude or draped life model. In designing the thread drawings, I carefully choose colours, patterns, textures from my large collection of preloved fabrics to convey the emotion, character and atmosphere that I wish to communicate in the piece.”

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I was born in Scotland and studied Fine Art at Edinburgh University. I have continued to create and study sculpture, drawing, mixed media & traditional craft forms and have been exhibiting my art in Melbourne since 2007. My art has appeared in many solo and group exhibitions and I have received a number of awards.

For many years now I have been exploring the unique expressive potential of thread as an artistic medium. My thread journey began as I sought to translate my life drawings into textile art pieces using freehand machine embroidery with recycled fabrics. Through these textile artworks I aim to explore the female form and psyche, depicting a woman’s sense of herself and her connection to her world.

Drawing is the foundation of all my artwork and I constantly strive to portray the immediacy and spontaneity of the drawn line in my work. I seek to portray authentic human experience through my own perspective as a woman and explore themes connected to my experience of place, memory & context, my fascination with the human form and anatomy and the metaphor that this provides me for exploring the endless multiple layers that make up the external and internal worlds of our lived experience

In my most recent work I have been following my passion for urban sketching and combining this with my love of mixed media and thread drawing. My Melbourne City Sketch Collection depicts vibrant scenes of this unique city that I have come to call home, sketched on site then transformed into mixed media artworks using freehand machine embroidery, fabric, paper, collage and multiple drawing materials. I aim to provide the viewer with a very experiential view of the spaces I portray: capturing the atmosphere of the moment, my love of Melbourne’s spaces and the city’s unique character and architecture, as well as exploring my own sense of self within these places.

Commissions Welcome!