Our featured artist this week is Melanie Jordan.
"A haptic practice with thread-based crafts at its core, Melanie’s artwork pays attention to the inner tension between the need to nurture and a feeling of entrapment associated with motherhood; that is maternal ambivalence. Her personal perspective is of a mother of an adult with learning difficulties, where the mother- child relationship becomes trapped in a dependent phase. Repetitive conversations form a considerable part of the interactions with her adult son. Within these intense exchanges are brief pauses in the flow of words that are relished. She has been considering her own thoughts to fill these ‘slivers of silence’ and stitching them into ribbons of words."
Selected artwork:
Artworks in order:
THE TROOPS OF MATERNAL CONCERN, 2020, Polymer clay, ribbon, thread, 12 sculptures each 10cm-12cm high
Bodily bobbins holding my ribbons of words to fill in the brief pauses in monotonous conversations with my adult autistic son.
PIN CUSHION, 2020, Hand dyed fabric, metal pins, 12cm X12 cm X12 cm
This represents the ambivalent feelingsthat a mother has for her adult dependent child. These feelings: represented by outward facing pins are piecing through from the very private out into the public sphere.
EMOTIONAL SILENCE, 2020,Hand died cotton fabric, 216cm x 370 cm
This is a huge contemporary piece of stitch work completed during the recent lockdown. My ambivalent thoughts and feelings are stitched into the very fabric of the work, as I sat and worked with this spread out on the floor. It is about finding the emotional silence within.