The Gallery of Contemporary Textile Artists
Maxine Bristow
United Kingdom
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Artist's Statement
The work strategically frames the processes, materials and accompanying discourses of needlework/plain-sewing within the conventions of a minimalist aesthetic. It acknowledges the traditions and discursive contexts of both of these codes of practice but through a process of exchange aims to subvert conventional definitions of meaning.
It makes reference to the serial repetition, geometric modularity and ‘objecthood' that was a specific concern of Minimalism; it is rational, systematic, and on the one hand aims to deny any emotional engagement, yet it departs from minimalist concerns as any attempt at aesthetic autonomy and neutrality is continually disrupted by the somatic sensuality of cloth and by the social and historical connotations of the needlework techniques employed in its production. A key issue with the work is the tension between the mutually modifying forces of austerity and sensuality and between formal autonomy and referentiality.
The expressive potential of the work is not realised outwardly through artistic subjectivity or authorial presence (indeed the self-imposed regime of quasi-mechanical repetitive activity and laboured processes involved in its making work to counter signs of artistic presence), but through the psychological potency of cloth which is articulated through subtlety of surface and repeated rhythmic processes which acknowledge the importance of the body in aesthetic experience.
With its ambiguous connotations of utility, the work acknowledge textile's position within material culture yet in occupying the same frontal space as painting makes reference to debates that were a preoccupation of artists and critics in the 1960's and 70's.
More recent work explores the relationship between minimalist sculpture and features of the built environment which mediate between the body and space and with which we have an actual physical though often unconscious bodily relationship. These features of the built environment instigate in us routinely repeated patterns of behaviour – patterns of behaviour that are echoed through the repetitive processes of needlepoint and darning employed in the work's production. -
Artist's Statement
The work strategically frames the processes, materials and accompanying discourses of needlework/plain-sewing within the conventions of a minimalist aesthetic. It acknowledges the traditions and discursive contexts of both of these codes of practice but through a process of exchange aims to subvert conventional definitions of meaning.
It makes reference to the serial repetition, geometric modularity and ‘objecthood' that was a specific concern of Minimalism; it is rational, systematic, and on the one hand aims to deny any emotional engagement, yet it departs from minimalist concerns as any attempt at aesthetic autonomy and neutrality is continually disrupted by the somatic sensuality of cloth and by the social and historical connotations of the needlework techniques employed in its production. A key issue with the work is the tension between the mutually modifying forces of austerity and sensuality and between formal autonomy and referentiality.
The expressive potential of the work is not realised outwardly through artistic subjectivity or authorial presence (indeed the self-imposed regime of quasi-mechanical repetitive activity and laboured processes involved in its making work to counter signs of artistic presence), but through the psychological potency of cloth which is articulated through subtlety of surface and repeated rhythmic processes which acknowledge the importance of the body in aesthetic experience.
With its ambiguous connotations of utility, the work acknowledge textile's position within material culture yet in occupying the same frontal space as painting makes reference to debates that were a preoccupation of artists and critics in the 1960's and 70's.
More recent work explores the relationship between minimalist sculpture and features of the built environment which mediate between the body and space and with which we have an actual physical though often unconscious bodily relationship. These features of the built environment instigate in us routinely repeated patterns of behaviour – patterns of behaviour that are echoed through the repetitive processes of needlepoint and darning employed in the work's production. -
Artist's Statement
The work strategically frames the processes, materials and accompanying discourses of needlework/plain-sewing within the conventions of a minimalist aesthetic. It acknowledges the traditions and discursive contexts of both of these codes of practice but through a process of exchange aims to subvert conventional definitions of meaning.
It makes reference to the serial repetition, geometric modularity and ‘objecthood' that was a specific concern of Minimalism; it is rational, systematic, and on the one hand aims to deny any emotional engagement, yet it departs from minimalist concerns as any attempt at aesthetic autonomy and neutrality is continually disrupted by the somatic sensuality of cloth and by the social and historical connotations of the needlework techniques employed in its production. A key issue with the work is the tension between the mutually modifying forces of austerity and sensuality and between formal autonomy and referentiality.
The expressive potential of the work is not realised outwardly through artistic subjectivity or authorial presence (indeed the self-imposed regime of quasi-mechanical repetitive activity and laboured processes involved in its making work to counter signs of artistic presence), but through the psychological potency of cloth which is articulated through subtlety of surface and repeated rhythmic processes which acknowledge the importance of the body in aesthetic experience.
With its ambiguous connotations of utility, the work acknowledge textile's position within material culture yet in occupying the same frontal space as painting makes reference to debates that were a preoccupation of artists and critics in the 1960's and 70's.
More recent work explores the relationship between minimalist sculpture and features of the built environment which mediate between the body and space and with which we have an actual physical though often unconscious bodily relationship. These features of the built environment instigate in us routinely repeated patterns of behaviour – patterns of behaviour that are echoed through the repetitive processes of needlepoint and darning employed in the work's production. -
Artist's Statement
The work strategically frames the processes, materials and accompanying discourses of needlework/plain-sewing within the conventions of a minimalist aesthetic. It acknowledges the traditions and discursive contexts of both of these codes of practice but through a process of exchange aims to subvert conventional definitions of meaning.
It makes reference to the serial repetition, geometric modularity and ‘objecthood' that was a specific concern of Minimalism; it is rational, systematic, and on the one hand aims to deny any emotional engagement, yet it departs from minimalist concerns as any attempt at aesthetic autonomy and neutrality is continually disrupted by the somatic sensuality of cloth and by the social and historical connotations of the needlework techniques employed in its production. A key issue with the work is the tension between the mutually modifying forces of austerity and sensuality and between formal autonomy and referentiality.
The expressive potential of the work is not realised outwardly through artistic subjectivity or authorial presence (indeed the self-imposed regime of quasi-mechanical repetitive activity and laboured processes involved in its making work to counter signs of artistic presence), but through the psychological potency of cloth which is articulated through subtlety of surface and repeated rhythmic processes which acknowledge the importance of the body in aesthetic experience.
With its ambiguous connotations of utility, the work acknowledge textile's position within material culture yet in occupying the same frontal space as painting makes reference to debates that were a preoccupation of artists and critics in the 1960's and 70's.
More recent work explores the relationship between minimalist sculpture and features of the built environment which mediate between the body and space and with which we have an actual physical though often unconscious bodily relationship. These features of the built environment instigate in us routinely repeated patterns of behaviour – patterns of behaviour that are echoed through the repetitive processes of needlepoint and darning employed in the work's production. -
Artist's Statement
The work strategically frames the processes, materials and accompanying discourses of needlework/plain-sewing within the conventions of a minimalist aesthetic. It acknowledges the traditions and discursive contexts of both of these codes of practice but through a process of exchange aims to subvert conventional definitions of meaning.
It makes reference to the serial repetition, geometric modularity and ‘objecthood' that was a specific concern of Minimalism; it is rational, systematic, and on the one hand aims to deny any emotional engagement, yet it departs from minimalist concerns as any attempt at aesthetic autonomy and neutrality is continually disrupted by the somatic sensuality of cloth and by the social and historical connotations of the needlework techniques employed in its production. A key issue with the work is the tension between the mutually modifying forces of austerity and sensuality and between formal autonomy and referentiality.
The expressive potential of the work is not realised outwardly through artistic subjectivity or authorial presence (indeed the self-imposed regime of quasi-mechanical repetitive activity and laboured processes involved in its making work to counter signs of artistic presence), but through the psychological potency of cloth which is articulated through subtlety of surface and repeated rhythmic processes which acknowledge the importance of the body in aesthetic experience.
With its ambiguous connotations of utility, the work acknowledge textile's position within material culture yet in occupying the same frontal space as painting makes reference to debates that were a preoccupation of artists and critics in the 1960's and 70's.
More recent work explores the relationship between minimalist sculpture and features of the built environment which mediate between the body and space and with which we have an actual physical though often unconscious bodily relationship. These features of the built environment instigate in us routinely repeated patterns of behaviour – patterns of behaviour that are echoed through the repetitive processes of needlepoint and darning employed in the work's production. -
Artist's Statement
The work strategically frames the processes, materials and accompanying discourses of needlework/plain-sewing within the conventions of a minimalist aesthetic. It acknowledges the traditions and discursive contexts of both of these codes of practice but through a process of exchange aims to subvert conventional definitions of meaning.
It makes reference to the serial repetition, geometric modularity and ‘objecthood' that was a specific concern of Minimalism; it is rational, systematic, and on the one hand aims to deny any emotional engagement, yet it departs from minimalist concerns as any attempt at aesthetic autonomy and neutrality is continually disrupted by the somatic sensuality of cloth and by the social and historical connotations of the needlework techniques employed in its production. A key issue with the work is the tension between the mutually modifying forces of austerity and sensuality and between formal autonomy and referentiality.
The expressive potential of the work is not realised outwardly through artistic subjectivity or authorial presence (indeed the self-imposed regime of quasi-mechanical repetitive activity and laboured processes involved in its making work to counter signs of artistic presence), but through the psychological potency of cloth which is articulated through subtlety of surface and repeated rhythmic processes which acknowledge the importance of the body in aesthetic experience.
With its ambiguous connotations of utility, the work acknowledge textile's position within material culture yet in occupying the same frontal space as painting makes reference to debates that were a preoccupation of artists and critics in the 1960's and 70's.
More recent work explores the relationship between minimalist sculpture and features of the built environment which mediate between the body and space and with which we have an actual physical though often unconscious bodily relationship. These features of the built environment instigate in us routinely repeated patterns of behaviour – patterns of behaviour that are echoed through the repetitive processes of needlepoint and darning employed in the work's production.
Contact Details:
m.bristow@chester.ac.uk
