Fragile stories (2015-2021) [multi-component output with contextualising information]
- Submitting institution
-
Bath Spa University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 3344
- Type
- M - Exhibition
- Venue(s)
- Gus Fisher Gallery, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand; Eagle Gallery EMH Arts, London, England; Oriel Davies Gallery, Newtown, Wales; Scuola di Grafica Gallery, Venice, Italy & other locations.
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of first exhibition
- -
- Year of first exhibition
- URL
-
https://doi.org/10.17870/bathspa.c.5174522.v1
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- Yes
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- Mandy Bonnell's solo exhibition Fragile Stories at Palazzo Mocenigo, Venice, Italy in 2020 was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which prevented international travel and closed galleries. Bonnell was due to show her book work 'Imparaticci' (pinpricking, letterpress, collage, needle punching, and pencil). The intricate, detailed nature of the work prevented virtual alternatives. The same exhibition will now run at Eagle Gallery EMH Arts, London, in 2021.
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Fragile Stories explores the complexity of mark making on an intimate scale, using typographic punctuation and careful precision to create skeletal structures inspired by the natural world and textile samples. It responds to nature as lines, shapes and rhythms of contemplative repetition, and to stitching as text and language.
The research investigates the connections between drawing and stitching, combining a variety of traditional craft techniques with contemporary drawing and printmaking processes. It asks, what is the relationship between drawing and stitching, and how might these techniques inform one another?
As well as responding to the natural world, Fragile Stories draws on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century textile samples of embroidery and lace. The works in the Collection are created using typographic punctuation marks transferred into different pattern formations to form a narrative. The time it takes to produce these sequences unites the pursuit of hand-stitched needlepoint while utilising a repeated mark within a non-repeated pattern.
Responding to self-taught eighteenth- and nineteenth-century women artists and naturalists, Fragile Stories acknowledges forgotten artists, whose images are lasting examples of plants and insects now extinct, and provides insight into the attitudes and practices of women at the time. One objective of the research has been to establish an on-going visual and tactile dialogue with the past, and interpret this through contemporary drawing and printmaking methods.
Bound up with the project’s dialogue with the past is a line of enquiry that considers the conservation of textiles and paper in sample books, and the role of binding (as a conduit and container) in preserving textiles, drawings, and botanical specimens. Bonnell’s methodology involves the dematerialisation of drawings by producing a series of unique book works.
This multi-component output consists of a number of prints and artist’s books that were exhibited internationally between 2015 and 2020.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -