Passing through, 2009, charcoal, cuts and embroidery thread on canvas, three panels
Ariadne’s Thread - memory, interconnection and the poetic in contemporary art
Kath Fries ~ Master of Visual Arts Thesis ~
University of Sydney, Sydney College of the Arts 2008.
Ariadne’s Thread - memory, interconnection and the poetic in contemporary art
Abstract: This Dissertation explores the metaphor of Ariadne’s thread in terms of interconnection, when an element from the everyday is used as a locus linking broader concepts of time and space. Such experiences and associations are reflected in the work of Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, Doris Salcedo, Lucio Fontana, Richard Tuttle, Mona Hatoum, Simone Mangos, Anya Gallaccio and Yoshihiro Suda. In relation to my own work, the metaphor of interconnecting thread allows a sense of freedom and journey of discovery. My studio and related research are closely aligned in developing my understanding of interconnection, through my studio process of making and continuing experiences of looking at and interpreting others artists’ work.
Read online at http://hdl.handle.net/2123/5709 or click on these links:
The John Fries Memorial Art Prize
On Tuesday 10th November 2009, Blackfriars off Broadway, Viscopy’s new Sydney
(John Fries, 1943 - 2009)
The prize remembers John Fries, who died suddenly following an accident earlier this year. John served on the Viscopy board of directors for 5 years and made a remarkable contribution to the life and success of the organisation. The cash prize has been committed by the Fries family. Speaking on behalf of the family John’s daughter Kath Fries, herself an artist, said :
“My father was always supportive of my work and through his work with Viscopy he really understood the financial challenges that face artists. I think he would be very proud of this award and the opportunity it presents for the winners to significantly advance their careers.”
(Michael Keighery Viscopy Chairman, Kath Fries, Vivienne Fries & Vanessa Fries)
Entries will open in April next year and the winner will be announced at an exhibition of finalists’ work in October 2010.
Viscopy is a not for profit membership rights management organisation representing over 7,000 artists and their beneficiaries, approximately 43% of the total population of artists in Australia and New Zealand. Indigenous artists account for almost half of these. Viscopy also represents some 40,000 international artists in the Australasian territory.
Recoiling
Recoiling is a new site-sensitive installation, featuring hand-braided rope bound around a tree trunk. The spiraling textiles lead the viewers' gaze up and away into branches and leaves, reaching towards the sky. These weighty tactile materials suggest medieval fairy-tale connotations within its menacing snake-like choking coils.
Recoiling is situated at Stonehurst Cedar Creek Cellar Door as part of
Sculpture in the Vineyards 2009, on the Wollombi Wine Trail in the Hunter Valley NSW.
Recoiling is situated at Stonehurst Cedar Creek Cellar Door as part of
Sculpture in the Vineyards 2009, on the Wollombi Wine Trail in the Hunter Valley NSW.
Fallen branch installation
Work created during my Laughing Waters artist residency.
... last summer's bushfires were never far from our thoughts ...
This work centered on a fallen branch, wrapped in foil with a mirror set behind it.
Chasing Rainbows
Site-sensitive works from my Laughing Waters artist residency.
Chasing Rainbows used mirrors, water and sunlight to create temporary rainbow reflections in the shadowy rocks that surround the landscaped ponds of the Birrarung bushland gardens.
Laughing Waters artist-in-residence
current Laughing Waters artists-in-residence
for an open studio evening and informal presentation of new works exploring their shared interests in time, reflection and place.
Saturday 17th October 5.30-7.30pm
Birrarung, Laughing Waters, Eltham, Victoria
RSVP artsinfo@nillumbik.vic.gov.au
Laughing Waters Artist Residency Program is run by Nillumbik Council, in partnership with Parks Victoria. Birrarung is a heritage mudbrick dwelling, built using organic and recycled materials. It has housed a number of artists over the years.
Ariadne’s Thread installation
My installation for Le fil (the thread), group exhibition at Gaffa Gallery, Surry Hills, was created out of numerous meters of recycled fabric woven into a rope, which then leads the viewer around the nocks and crannies of the gallery space. Titled Ariadne’s Thread the work refers to the ancient Greek myth of the Cretan Labyrinth navigated using a spool of thread.
Special thanks to Jodi Altona, Kate Clive, Chrissie Ianssen, Eleanor James, Anneke Jaspers, Olivia Kloosterman, Nina Marisol Prado, Anton Pulvirenti, Elsa Pulvirenti, Megan Robson and Elise Routledge for their weaving and braiding assistance with this project.
Le Fil (the thread) exhibition invitation
You are invited to attend opening night drinks with the artists, Thursday 30th July 2009, 6-8pm
Gaffa Gallery, 1/7 Randle St, Surry Hills, NSW 2010
The exhibition continues to Tuesday 11th August
Curated by Kath Fries
Featuring new work by Hannah Bertram, Kath Fries, Michelle Heldon, Chrissie Ianssen, Jade Pegler, Melinda Young, Sahar Hosseinabadi, Michele Morcos, Linden Braye, Megan Yeo, Shannon Johnson and Sophia Egarchos.
Le Fil (the thread) is a group exhibition, bringing together twelve artists who deconstruct and re-address materials, processes and designs relating to the textile industry. A connecting conceptual thread runs between the artists’ works linking how we value fabrics from the contemporary, to the traditional and ancient. Textiles can be warm and comforting; they can communicate glamour and wealth, they can also convey cultural, national or religious significance. Such an essential part of our contemporary daily lives, we consume and discard vast quantities of mass-produced textiles that ultimately end up as landfill waste. In this group exhibition, Le Fil (the thread), each artist broaches a different conceptual angle ranging from metaphors of fabric as interwoven memories, to cycles of decay and renewal, yearning escapism and the ongoing struggles against assumptions of traditional feminine domesticism.
At the exhibition opening, Thursday 30th July 6-8pm, Mick James will be improvising a live tapestry of ephemeral sound-scapes, aurally stitched together with electronic sampling, reworking and remixing. Mick James has worked with FBi 94.5FM and continues to create collages of intriguing sounds from his home studio in Sydney for his fans in Japan and all over the world.
Skid-marks
Skid-marks, charcoal, gold embroidery thread, canvas, glass, feathers and rose thorns, installation at Gaffa Gallery, July 2009
Pulse
A site-specific installation for Castaways Sculpture Festival on Rockingham beach, Perth, Western Australia, May 2009. Recycled materials including second hand clothing, yarn, upholstery off-cuts, textiles and fabrics were bound into 20 meters of the existing fencing along the Rockingham boardwalk.
Chocolate Braille
Wouldn't it be nice if the world was... 2009, Braille created from chocolate drops melted onto the gallery wall, March 2009, part of the group exhibition lure allure illusion at Gaffa Gallery.
The Braille tells the story of a young African boy, Aly Diabate, falsely lured away from his home in Mali to work on an Ivory Coast cocoa plantation. Slaving from dawn til dusk he struggled to carry large heavy bags of cocoa beans, often collapsing from fatigue and he was beaten severely for working too slowly. Aly was drastically underfeed and locked up at night with the other children, in a small confined room so they wouldn’t escape.
West Africa collectively produces three quarters of the world's cocoa supplies, so almost all the chocolate sold around the world today contains a percentage of cocoa produced by child slave labour. Perhaps our blind, almost childlike responses to the allure of chocolate fuels our naive illusions, but in reality our consumption of chocolate is much more destructive than than we superficially like to believe.
The Braille tells the story of a young African boy, Aly Diabate, falsely lured away from his home in Mali to work on an Ivory Coast cocoa plantation. Slaving from dawn til dusk he struggled to carry large heavy bags of cocoa beans, often collapsing from fatigue and he was beaten severely for working too slowly. Aly was drastically underfeed and locked up at night with the other children, in a small confined room so they wouldn’t escape.
West Africa collectively produces three quarters of the world's cocoa supplies, so almost all the chocolate sold around the world today contains a percentage of cocoa produced by child slave labour. Perhaps our blind, almost childlike responses to the allure of chocolate fuels our naive illusions, but in reality our consumption of chocolate is much more destructive than than we superficially like to believe.
Siren's Song
An installation of feathers, mirrors, nylon and acrylic, March 2009, part of the group exhibition lure allure illusion at Gaffa gallery.
Sirens, in Greek mythology, were mystical, dangerous bird-women, whose singing lured passing sailors to their deaths. In this installation feathers are tantalizing, intimate and seductive, like the Siren's wings, however there is a subtle sinister undertone of doom and destruction.
Olga's Music Box, Sculpture in the Vineyards 2008
Last year, my elderly next door neighbor, Olga, was telling me about the place she where she grew up in Hungary. It was a wine growing region that produced wonderful sweet wines and was famous for its beautiful popular trees. Olga remembers the sounds of the poplar leaves rustling in the breeze and singing the local folk songs about the autumnal golden poplar trees. In Greek mythology the poplar tree is the Tree of Life, because of its distinctly bicolored leaves; dark green on the side that faces Heaven, pale green on the side that faces Earth, representing the male/female duality from which all was born. This artwork, titled Olga's Music Box, is about nostalgia and they way that sounds can trigger half forgotten memories on the other side of the world.
The installation:
About 2 meters above the ground, strung between two poplar trees are five parallel lines of black hessian webbing, representing a music stanza.
The music notes are represented by large black poplar leaf shapes. On one side of each is a piece of broken mirror.
The leaf-music-notes are attached to the parallel lines with a swivel allowing the leaf-music-notes to spin freely in the breeze and the mirrored side catches and reflects the sunlight, creating dancing patterns of light on the shadowy ground.
Set amongst the poplar trees at Stonehurst Cedar Creek Vineyard, Olga's Music Box entices viewers deep into the forest of trees, as they catch glimpses of the leaf-music-notes glinting in the distance, a stanza of spinning silent music.
Flat-lining, Sculpture in the Vineyards 2008
This installation is a development of the heartbeat work that I installed at Stonehurst Cedar Creek last year.
Flat-lining is a site-specific work for the length of the barbed wire fence leading up to the cellar door at Undercliff Vineyard, Wollombi, The Hunter Valley. Red knitting yarn is bound around lengths of barbed wire for the entire length of the fence, occasionally zig-zagging like a heartbeat. The brightly coloured, soft, fuzzy-edged materiality of the yarn contrasts the harsh aggressive material of the barbed wire.
Flat-lining explores the concept of boundaries. The use of the barbed-wire fence conveys multiple associations of defense, aggression, possession, containment and protection. The colour, softness and tactility of the continuous red line of bound yarn, combined with the title, Flat-lining, indicates an indeterminate moment on the boundary between life and death.
The term Flat-lining is mostly used in the medical industry when a person's pulse has stopped, indicating a flat line on the heart monitor. Even at this point - the boundary can be breached in either direction - there is still the possibility of resuscitation.
slumbering, 2008
slumbering, 2008
multimedia installation MVA Post-Grad exhibition at SCA
dvd projection, mirrors, bamboo, vines, aluminum wire mesh, nylon, feathers, acrylic and charcoal on walls
SCA Post-Grad Degree Show 08
SCA Postgraduate Degree Show 08
Opening Tuesday 9 December 6.00–8.00pm
My artwork will be in installation room one.
Exhibition continues to Wednesday 17 December. Opening hours: Monday to Saturday 11am–5pm
Sydney College of the Arts
The Visual Arts Faculty of the University of Sydney
Balmain Road, Rozelle, NSW Australia
(enter opposite Cecily Street)
+61 2 9351 1008
www.usyd.edu.au/sca
Quick-Unpick exhibition
Quick-Unpick - an exhibition of artwork influenced by sewing, textile patterns, knitting and embroidery by Kath Fries, Sophia Egarchos, Linden Braye, Virginia Mawer, Megan Yeo and Shannon Johnson.
Albion Street Gallery
105 Albion St Surry Hills
Opening drinks with the artists: Friday 10th Oct 6-9pm
Exhibition continues until 8 Nov 2008
Gallery Open: Tuesday to Saturday 11am - 5pm
Images left to right: Queen crown - Megan Yeo, Detail - Virginia Mawer, Burning out i - Kath Fries, Do you know what I’m Thinking - Linden Braye, Fever - Sophia Egarchos, Path of no return - Shannon Johnson, Chopper - Megan Yeo,
Burning out
Burning out 2008, embroidery thread, smoke, pyrography, and pokerwork on canvas, 20 x 20 cm, exhibited at Gaffa Gallery in Through the eye of a needle
To have and to hold
To have and to hold, 2008, satin bridal gloves, smoke, pyrography, pokerwork and embroidery thread, exhibited at Gaffa Gallery as part of Through the eye of a needle
Through the eye of a needle
An exhibition by artists who incorporate elements of stitching, sewing, weaving, pattern-making or embroidery in their wider art practice.
Gaffa Gallery, 1/7 Randle St, Surry Hills, NSW 2010 Australia, 12 – 6pm, Monday to Saturday www.gaffa.com.au
28 March to 8 April 2008
The slippery line between art and craft, is one that has been questioned and attacked by artists for many years. The artists in this exhibition each take different elements from both traditions to create fascinating works, which are simultaneously beautiful, tactile, provocative and ultimately quite difficult to pin down.
The exhibition presents the work of twelve artists:
Linden Braye, Sophia Egarchos, Kath Fries, Chrissie Ianssen, Mick James, Shannon Johnson, Virginia Mawer, Daphne Molony, Michele Morcos, Adrianne Tasker, Alex Weare and Megan Yeo.
"Thread, fabric, needles and wool are all items of the everyday. Domestic and familiar, they are materials that educe no attention or consideration although they surround us on a daily basis. At a time when the effects of mass production and consumption are increasingly becoming mainstream concerns, how is it that such items continue to be unseen? If such objects are removed from familiar sites and are represented in new and different forms, what difference does it make to how we think about these domestic materials?
In Through the eye of a needle domestic items and materials are reinterpreted and reassembled to create works that raise questions about our personal relationship with objects in a society of mass production and consumption. The exhibition presents the work of twelve artists: Linden Braye, Sophia Egarchos, Kath Fries, Chrissie Ianssen, Mick James, Shannon Johnson, Virginia Mawer, Daphne Molony, Michele Morcos, Adrianne Tasker, Alex Weare and Megan Yeo, who investigate the methods, ideology and forms associated with mass manufactured textile and domestic goods. Utilising the tools, techniques and structure associated with textile and domestic objects,Through the eye of a needle explores how the materials and processes of the everyday can be reconstructed and redefined through a framework that references contemporary social, technological and art historical concerns.
The works in Through the eye of a needle employ techniques that are most commonly associated with handiwork or craft based work — stitching, weaving, embroidery, patternmaking, and patchwork, but match these traditional methods with contemporary mediums, such as video, sound and installation aesthetics. The hand made element of the pieces is an integral part of the art work, but it is used by the artists in a manner that very much reflects the nature of current society as a highly technologically dependent consumer driven arena.
What is most interesting about these works is the use of the traditional within a format that engages with the sensibilities of contemporary culture. Rather than simply using the traditional methods of textile crafts to create works, the artists deconstruct the very processes of the forms to explore broader contemporary concerns. In particular it is the forms and systems that we associate with the manufacture of mass-produced goods: scale, volume, and repetition, that are used in these works to greatest effect.
Whilst the individual practices of the twelve artists are incredibly diverse covering painting through to performance, the artists share an approach to art making that emphasises the representation of the process of making the object in the final art work. In Through the eye of a needle the very construction of the art work is a central component of the exhibited piece. In placing the process of creating the work at the vanguard, the artist forces the viewer to acknowledge the workmanship involved in the art work.
In the context of the exhibition the importance placed on technique raises a number of questions in relation to the idea of the artist as the (literal) creator and the concept of what it means to construct an object by hand in a society in which mass produced goods are so readily available.
The emphasis on technique and assemblage in Through the eye of a needle alerts the viewer to the status of the work as an “art object” by highlighting the role of the artist in the final product. Such a strong statement about the role of the artist, in particular a statement which is implicit in the final work, reads as a declaration to the viewer that the physical representation or “mark of the maker” within the work is the difference between the art work and the anaemic mass produced object. In declaring that authorship of the art object lies with the artist, the works in Through the eye of a needle further distance themselves from mass produced goods by claiming that authorship is more valuable than ownership. In a social environment where homogeneity reigns supreme, it is not simply about owning the same object (or a different object for that matter), to be truly separate from the system you have to create an art object.
The importance placed on technique and the representation of labour within Through the eye of a needle and the relationship it has with ideas of authorship, value and responsibility can be understood as a contemporary rereading and continuation of the concerns of the Process Art movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Developed in reaction to the predominant art practice of the time — Minimalism, Process Art emphasised the representation of the artist’s hand in the final work by presenting the art-making process as a feature of the final piece. Within a wider socio-political exploration the artists in Through the eye of a needle draw upon the central concerns of the movement to provide an appropriate frame in which to experiment with traditional craft techniques in a specific art context.
In Over and Over: Passion for Process, Kathleen Harleman, Judith Hoos Fox and Ginger Gregg Duggan describe such practices as ‘HyperProcess Art’ . Specifically concerned with ‘hands-on art-making', HyperProcess Art explores the themes of the Process Art movement from a contemporary position. HyperProcess Art is an apt description of the works in Through the eye of a needle as it recognises the central role of both handicraft and other textile based techniques and materials, the engagement with processes and forms of contemporary society, the mass production techniques of industry through obsessive forms, and the representation of the artist in the creation of the work.
Through the eye of a needle presents a complex selection of works that force the viewer to reconsider the physical and formal qualities of the domestic and the mundane within a social framework of digital production and consumption. By involving the viewer in the process of creating the art work, Through the eye of a needle enables us to explore the processes and assembly of creation and manufacture in our own lives."
Megan Robson, catalogue essay Through the eye of a needle, March 2008
encroach i
encroach i, Kath Fries, rose stems and thorns and pencil on walls, installation 900 x 80 x 30 cm, exhibited at North London TK February 9th 2008, Annandale Sydney Australia
encroach ii
encroach ii, Kath Fries, aluminium wire mesh and fireplace, installation 80 x 120 x 70 cm, exhibited at North London TK February 9th 2008, Annandale Sydney Australia
encroach iii
encroach iii, Kath Fries, aluminium wire mesh, installation dimensions variable, exhibited at North London TK February 9th 2008, Annandale Sydney Australia
Mirror, Mirror
Mirror, Mirror
New photographic work by Kath Fries
Exit Gallery, Sydney
Thursday 31st January - Saturday 23rd February 2008
Opening: 6:00 - 8:00pm Wednesday 30th January
Kath Fries presents a new series of works at Exit Gallery, which explore the seemingly simple subject of rose thorns. The sombre but seductive photographs in Mirror, Mirror explore the popular and literary connotations of rose thorns through a range of contemporary and historic references.
Since medieval times through to the present day, roses have been used as references to vanity and the eternal quest for youth and beauty. Clichés frequently liken women to roses, and the rose is credited as the most romantic flower. However, none of Kath Fries' carefully considered photographs feature even the suggestion of a rose bloom.
Thorns have traditionally been used in reference to stories of pain, and cruelty. From Dante's Divine Comedy to Christ's Crown of Thorns, the thorn is evoked in accounts of trials and tribulations. Even in contemporary colloquial expressions such as 'a thorn in my side' and 'thorny issues'; the thorn is that which is best removed or ignored like a skeleton in the closet.
Kath Fries' Threaded thorn series draws connections between Dante's Seven Deadly Sins, and Grimm Brothers fairytales. In Snow White, the vain wicked queen consults her magic mirror -
'Mirror, Mirror on the wall,
who in this land is the fairest of all?'
When she learns that Snow White's innocent youthfulness has usurped the title, the wicked queen is consumed by envious wrath and plots her revenge.
Mirror, Mirror illustrates the rose thorn's robust delicacy through an exploration of the flora's relationship to a wider oeuvre of cultural and religious narrative. These photographs are part of the artist's continuing investigation into the motif of memory as it is represented in the background of our everyday life, exploring the idea of contemporary existence juxtaposed with objects that signify a multitude of personal and social histories.
At the Point series
At the Point, series of 6 colour digital photographs, editon of 5, 26 x 19.5cm each
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