Rhythm Interrupted – Life Redirected

Visitor Centre Gallery
12 January - 8 March 2011

‘Rhythm Interrupted – Life Redirected’ is a large dramatic textile exhibition. It is a collaboration between lace maker Vicki Taylor from Kentucky, New South Wales, and Canberra lace maker Jenny Rees.

Vicky’s artworks use traditional bobbin lace making techniques in a contemporary way. By using wool, plastics, colourful chunky materials, metallic fibres and wire, she creates and presents her works in a sculptural form.

Jenny was keen to work on an art piece that was descriptive, but presented a positive side to the trauma of bushfires. She lost her home in the Canberra bushfires of 2003 and her experiences and photographs, along with media images about the Victorian bushfires in 2008, provided the inspiration for the work.

‘Rhythm Interrupted – Life Redirected’ consists of fifteen .81m x 1.22m wide panels depicting the bushfire experience. The work presents a progression of life before, during and after the fires. The texture of the materials used, including linen weaving threads and glossy strong raffia, generates the emotional imagery of the raging fireballs and shiny black blockiness of charcoal.

“We wanted to present strength in the design and include a tribute to the firemen and women, counsellors and chaplains, and everyone who helped with food and shelter or donations. It has been a challenge to use a feminine, soft, see-through lace method to depict a black, noisy, horrible experience,” Jenny said.

“We have tried to present the calm of the bush before fire, using cotton fabric hand dyed in blue and green and commercial knitting yarns. The coarse raffia reflects ‘the drama of fire’. The work then moves on to the process of bush regeneration “and people returning to that calm – a different calm, that’s never going to be the same again but we also wanted to give hope that things will improve and that there is life after a bushfire.”

In 2009, Jenny published Lace from Australian bush: Australian wildflower patterns in torchon lace, a guide to creating lace works of native plants, including Swainsona, Telopea, Eucalyptus and Zieria.

Panel example

For more information contact the Visitor Centre on 02 6250 9540