Coledale artist Michele Elliot has an exhibition of new work titled what is held, is here at Wollongong Art Gallery. In this article, she shares some of the inspiration and influences that have shaped her ideas.
While it's hard to pinpoint an exact starting point for these works, a loose idea became a hypothetical question based on the experience of Covid, especially in the initial weeks and months, in the unknown. When we found ourselves in the midst of the lockdowns, I felt like we all had to become more resourceful. My question was, ‘What if I could only work with what is here around me, with what is at hand?’
I set out to create artworks that are mostly comprised of materials gathered from local walks, from my garden, with objects gifted by family and friends or those in my studio. I wanted to bring them all into a conversation through the process of making and the language of textiles. Materials like bedsheets, onion skins, lemongrass, pumice stones light as air, a fallen branch, are tethered to moments through stitching and dyeing – an earthquake, fires, a volcanic eruption, the death of a sibling become meeting places.
I have been working with upcycled and collected materials for many years. My studio is full of them. I’m drawn to things that have had a life in the world, particularly those with an innate connection to the body. Like our bodies, cloth and garments wear down, their frailty becomes visible. I’m drawn to the frays and the edges, where holes appear and seams fall apart. As materials and artworks, they mirror our bodies and can stand in for the human experience, with scars and breaks and mends that appear over time.
The conceptual side of what is held, is here relates to the places we live and dwell, to community and the ways we come together in celebration and adversity. One of the large wall works – cloak (black summer smoke bath/lost orchard silk/thakurma churi), 2023 – was created with bark fallen from a tree in my garden during the extreme heat of the bushfires in 2019-20. The acrid smell of smoke had impregnated the bark and I wanted to record the memory of those weeks and months. I filled a large tub with water, added the bark and immersed an old white sheet in with the material. It sat there for three years, with an occasional stirring, slowly absorbing the bark’s colour. I had no specific plan but trusted that something would emerge. If you look closely, all the artworks in the show have stories linking place, process and materials.
The other aspect of community that has fundamentally shifted my art practice, came out of a residency at Tender Funerals in Port Kembla. I facilitate their fortnightly Sewing Circle as part of the After Care Program. It is a social space for people who have experienced loss and grief, and we meet to work on projects, on sewing for mortuary care and for friendship and support.
As part of the exhibition, I’m holding a weekly sewing circle in the gallery as part of the public program. People are welcome to bring a craft project and join us on Thursday mornings, 10.30am-12.30pm for the duration of the exhibition.
what is held, is here runs until August 25 at Wollongong Art Gallery. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.
