Material Worlds: Contemporary Artists and Textiles - Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre

Rae-Yen Song - song dynasty

On until Sunday 15 December 2024 at the Mead Gallery in Warwick Arts Centre, this exhibition features 15 UK based artists who use textiles in their art in interesting or radical ways.  It is a Hayward Gallery touring exhibition curated by artist Caroline Achaintre.  Here is my selection of the works...

Song dynasty (above) relates to family and identity and was made by Rae-Yen Song for five members of the Song family.  The costume resembles a green, scaly, conjoined creature.  We are told it is a futuristic garment where family, memory and imagination converge.

These beautiful tapestries (below) by Yelena Popova are woven on a mechanised Jacquard loom from her digital designs.  Although seemingly abstract they are based on her research into first generation nuclear power plants around the UK...

Yelena Popova - Keepsafe l & ll

Anna Perach used a rug tufting technique to create her Venus which can also be worn as a costume.  Her reference point for this is the 18th century hyper-real waxwork models of women's anatomy, designed for examination and disassembly for the study of anatomy. They were called "anatomical Venuses".  Her work relates to gender issues and the partriarchy...

Anna Perach - Venus

Paul Maheke's pieces are based on his drawings that have been bleached into fabric.  The drawings were loosely based on a fortune telling session using coffee grounds. We are told much of his work relates to what's absent, what's unseen and what's left untold...

Paul Maheke - We Took a Sip from the Devil's Cup

Of Marc Camille Chaimowicz's three pieces that are shown here, it is Dual that appealed to me particularly.  Each item can either be a chair or a sort of chaise longue depending whether they are upright or horizontal.  Chaimowicz liked to explore dualities and the fluidity of identity.  I think this is ingenius...

Marc Camille Chaimowicz - Dual, Malevolent Coat Hook, Cluny (wallpaper)

Alexandre da Cunha's piece looks like a geometric hanging but is in fact made from umbrellas. I think this gives it added interest. Da Cunha likes to collect everyday objects to use in his art.  He hopes that once you realise what his art is made from it will prompt you to question where the items come from, who made them and how they are used...

Alexandre da Cunha - Arena

Tenant of Culture or Henrickje Schimmel, who I have written about before here, disassembles and reassembles fashion items with a view to looking into supply chains and questioning design intentions...

Tenant of Culture - Puzzlecut Boot Brown 

Tonico Lemos Auad was known initially for making sculptures of animals using carpet fluff and hairspray.  I was really hoping to see one of these as I couldn't quite imagine it but there was only a photographic print...

Tonico Lemos Auad - Fox (Moonbeam Carpet)

He now makes more traditional woven works based on landscape and architectural forms...

Tonico Lemos Auad - Paisagem Vermelha (Red Landscape)

I found the construction of Paloma Proudfoot's piece interesting as a combination of ceramic and textile. Proudfoot explores the relationship between the body and the garment and how that affects our perceptions of identity and power..

Paloma Proudfoot - The Mannequins Reply (detail)

In the Make Space, designed for engagement with visitors, Mixed Rage Collective had made a Sticks and Stones piece using wrapping techniques, cord and pompoms which I thought was very effective. It relates to the lived experience of being "othered" - lack of representation, daily microaggressions and displacement felt by people of mixed ethnicities.  I liked some of the messages visitors had left behind too.

Mixed Rage Collective & the Community

There is a very small cafe and dining area in the Arts Centre and if you have parked in one of the nearby carparks you can pay for your parking at a machine near the entrance of the Arts Centre.  The parking app and parking website don't appear to work but you will need your car registration number to pay!