Collection Articles - Textiles
Binding Statements (detail), 1999-2000
Michael Reed.
Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu |
A Stitch in Time
Textiles comprise a small proportion of the Gallery's Collections,
yet they span a vast time period, combining Chinese antiques and
17th century appliqué with fabric-based work made as recently
as 2000. The diverse range of practice is indicative of the evolution,
in form and content, of textile-based works from objects dedicated
to religious worship and domestic decoration to conceptual art objects
which exist outside a strictly functional context.
One of the oldest works in the Collection is The Pascal Lamb, made
by an unknown artist, which has been dated to c.1660 AD. This appliqué
work (a technique where shapes are cut from one piece of fabric
and applied to another) combines silver thread, satin fabric and
a red velvet background to depict a common heraldic subject, a white
lamb carrying a banner. The lamb is a familiar symbol in Christian
art, where it is the emblem of the Redeemer and also the attribute
of several saints, including St. Agnes, St. Catherine and St. John
the Baptist. The subject of this particular work, the Pascal (or
Paschal) Lamb, is the animal sacrificed and eaten at the Jewish
Passover, a festival commemorating the liberation of Israelites
from Egyptian bondage. For Christians, Jesus Christ is identified
with the Paschal Lamb because the meal which became the Last Supper
began as a Passover feast. Christ was then referred to as the Lamb
of God: John 1:29: "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away
the sin of the world", 1 Corinthians 5:7: "For even Christ
our passover is sacrificed for us".
The Lamb in this work is shown passant, that is, walking and looking
to the dexter side (the right side of the composition, which is
the viewer's left) with three feet on the ground and one raised.
With this raised hoof, the Lamb supports the banner of St George,
the patron saint of England, whose legendary slaying of a dragon
symbolised the triumph of Christianity over evil. The Pascal Lamb
was purchased in 1972 from an Auckland antique dealer by Brian Muir
(Director of the Gallery between 1969 and 1978) as part of a strategy
(common in museological practice at that time) to contextualise
the collection by augmenting historical artworks with period furniture
and other domestic items. The Lamb has not survived its long period
of existence without accumulating several marks of age, as the velvet
background has lost much of its pile and colour intensity and the
satin fabric is worn in places, revealing a coarse plain-weave support
fabric behind. A slight crease down the centre of the fabric suggests
that The Lamb spent at least some of its history folded in half.
Being Air, 2000, Jennifer Matheson,
Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu |
A silk embroidery, identified as 'possibly from a Mandarin's Robe',
which was presented to the Gallery by Mrs G. L. Montfort of Christchurch
in 1976 is another of the older textiles held by the Gallery. The
largely blue and cream composition teems with a profusion of flower
clusters and butterflies, suggesting light and shadow through different
sections of colour. Like The Pascal Lamb, this textile had become
increasingly faded and worn over time and was extensively conserved
after being acquired by the Gallery.
The majority of the textile collection was accumulated in the 1970s
and 80s and includes works by Gordon Crook, Sally Ann Griggs, Esther
Archdall, Marie Abbot, Ruth Dean and Peter Collingwood. In addition
to the works held within the Gallery, the Collection also includes
the Women's Suffrage Commemorative Wall Hanging, which was designed
by Di ffrench and embroidered by one hundred members of the Canterbury
Embroiderer's Guild. The hanging, completed in 1993 to celebrate
the 100th anniversary of New Zealand women gaining the right to
vote, now hangs permanently in the Christchurch Town Hall.
The Collection includes three works by Ida Lough (1907-1985), one
of the pioneers of hand weaving and tapestry in New Zealand. On
an early trip to Europe, Lough was struck by the beauty of the Mille
Fleurs tapestries in the Cluny Museum in Paris. After viewing weavings
in Scandinavia in the mid 1950s, she returned to Christchurch determined
to become a weaver. Little instruction was available at the time
and Lough was largely self-taught, but she did receive tutoring
in the basics of weaving from the occupational therapist at Burwood
Hospital (who was later to become Lady Hay). Lough's work has been
exhibited throughout New Zealand, and internationally in Stuttgart,
Toronto, London, Tokyo, Sydney and Europe. In 1975, she was commissioned
to contribute a large tapestry for the interior of the newly renovated
Roman Catholic Basilica in Christchurch, which she worked on in
close collaboration with sculptor Ria Bancroft. Unlike most weavers,
Lough did not work from preparatory designs, but rather designed
her tapestries as she wove, working from her own memories of shapes
and colours found in nature. The tapestry Water Grasses (1974),
purchased for the Collection with assistance from the Olive Stirrat
Bequest in 1988, is a good example of Lough's interest in simple
and fluid organic forms.
Christchurch-based fibre artist Vivienne Mountfort, who has exhibited
in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Europe and the United States of
America is also represented in the Collection by three works. One
of these, Life is Like a Long Braided River (1996) is constructed
from New Zealand flax, handmade flax paper and mineral dyes. By
drawing on the characteristic braided form of the Waimakariri River,
Mountfort conveys the complex and interwoven nature of human existence.
The innovative application of materials, and use of natural elements
to reflect personal and universal concerns within this work, are
typical of Mountfort's practice.
Two recent acquisitions, Jennifer Matheson's Being Air (2000) and
Michael Reed's Binding Statements (1999 - 2000) are conceptual works
which expand at the boundaries of textile or fibre art whilst employing
and drawing on the resonances of their chosen materials. The elegant,
flowing form of Being Air takes its shape from the noren, or split
Japanese curtain. The ambiguous nature of this object, at once an
entrance and a screen, is suggestive of a transition from one zone
to another, a reading reinforced by the screen-printed design, which
depicts the 1937 Hindenburg air disaster. The wall of red crepe
bandages in Reed's Binding Statements provoke immediate associations
with the violence and danger of warfare, while silk-screened phrases
such as 'Alms/Arms' and 'Genocide = Business' combine with the frayed
edges of the crepe strips to powerfully convey the artist's outrage
and disillusionment at the profit margins that lurk behind many
civil wars.
Not withstanding the popularity of travelling fibre-based exhibitions
such as U.S. and US (which was displayed at the Gallery in 1997),
space limitations at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu have meant
that the textiles in the Collection have often remained in storage.
Fortunately however, this situation has been remedied in the design
for the new Art Gallery, in which space has been set aside in the
Monica Richards Gallery to permanently display a selection of textiles.
This will provide far greater opportunities for visitors to appreciate
and enjoy a collection representing a wide spectrum of cultural
responses across time.
Felicity Milburn
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