Collage to Stitch: Textile Art at Mrs Harris' Shop

Collage to Stitch: Textile Art at Mrs Harris' Shop

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Posted 2018-02-03 by Julia Wakefieldfollow

Textile artists have to be a dedicated bunch. Patience is essential, planning and design are crucial, and attention to detail can make or break their work.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in Collage to Stitch, the current exhibition showing at Mrs Harris' Shop.


Four textile artists, collectively known as Four by Four, have produced this exhibition which traces their journeys from a series of paper collages to rich wall pieces full of colour and multiple textures.

The artists, Sandra Obst, Ruth Galpin, Suzanne Gummow and Maxine Fry, initially attended a workshop to explore the development of ideas in collage. This in turn inspired the exhibition.

They set themselves a challenge to make one post-card sized collage per day. Once a month, they met to discuss their work and to set a theme for the coming month.


Their collages developed through tearing, cutting and layering a wide variety of papers — commercial, hand-made, oriental, printed, dyed, hand-coloured — and each month, each artist would create an A4 sized textile piece in preparation for a larger work. They went on to create four large pieces, 75 x 45cm, which form the focus of the exhibition. They are displayed along with the collage and the A4 piece that led to their development.


The dedication and discipline involved in creating 365 collages, twelve A4 pieces and four large works speaks for itself. To see the work 'in the flesh' reminds us of the amount of work that is required to produce even the smallest piece. These are not pieces that are 'whipped up' overnight.


Collage to Stitch has toured extensively, interstate and internationally. It is now showing at Mrs Harris' Shop until Sunday 11 March.


Until now, the pieces were not for sale, but with the touring drawing to a close (there will be two more showings of the exhibition in regional South Australia) the works have been made available for purchase. Understandably, the exhibition pieces are not available immediately – collection must wait until touring finishes at the end of September.

But if you can't wait to take a piece of this beautiful exhibition home with you, the artists of Four by Four have created EXTRA A4 sized works, which are ready for immediate purchase. In addition, each artist has produced a series of greeting cards featuring their works.


While no-one really should need an excuse to buy beautiful works of art, Valentine's Day is coming up soon, and after that comes Easter (who needs another Easter egg or more chocolate?) - or Mother's Day might be the appropriate time to give a gift with a difference.


Each of the artists will be in the gallery over the next two weekends to meet and chat with visitors. You may want to know more about textile art in general, or you might have a question about individual works. Perhaps you'd like to join a class to polish your techniques. These are the people to help you. Suzanne is highly regarded as a teacher in this field and Ruth, Maxine and Sandra are more than willing to share their experiences as students and now as accomplished textile artists.

Collage to Stitch is showing at Mrs Harris' Shop 11am - 3pm on Saturdays and Sundays until 11 March.


Artists' Statement:
Collage has been recognised as a fine art medium since George Braque and Pablo Picasso experimented with papers in the Cubist phase of French Art in 1912. From the 1920s, many major artists including Joan Miro and Slavador Dali use collage in their graphic explorations. In 1947, Henri Matisse cut directly into pre-coloured paper to create simplified compositions that had a profound influence on twentieth century art. The medium has been used by artists ever since. Four by Four

#art
#craft
#handmade
#needlework
#torrensville
#valentines_day
%wnadelaide
219983 - 2023-06-16 07:56:48

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