A grid of “letters” lie on the floor – perhaps a new alphabet, or correspondence written in a language of folds. Lengths of felt fabric are folded into themselves, creating closeness from distance. Felt is a noun and a verb. Felt is not felt but porcelain. A translation. A mistranslation. Rocks compress, hold and divide, create pressure, security, tension, precarity, connection and space.
This body of work began as a preoccupation and frustration with the limitations of spoken and written language. Words are slippery and inadequate containers for truth, which is always nuanced, multiple, malleable, and messy. It evolved into an investigation of the dialectics of relationships. How can we be together whilst maintaining autonomy? How can we maintain autonomy without becoming isolated? How do we communicate well, when all communication requires translation?
All works are slip-dipped porcelain – felt fabric, dipped in porcelain slip, when fired the felt combusts and the porcelain retains its shape and texture.
Nancy Dewhurst 