Artists cross borders in new exhibition

Borders are confronted, interpreted and defined by nine textile artists in a new exhibition opening at Newcastle’s Timeless Textiles Gallery in October.

The Crossing Borders exhibition displays the results of a masterclass taught by Danish fibre artist and teacher Jette Clover. Conducted over nine months, the masterclass encouraged the students to explore the literal, political, cultural, symbolic and psychological meaning of a border.

They experimented with techniques and materials to visually express borders through lines, seams, folds, shadows, colours, and textures.

A border makes distinction between adjoining elements and spaces, and can either separate or link those elements and spaces. In everyday usage, border most often refers to a physical obstruction. It is associated with cultural and political diversity. Borders often mark language barriers and can create feelings of inside/outside and us/them.

A journalist before she became an artist, Clover helped her students to also consider those invisible borders that affect us, personally and collectively. Personally, we can be limited by fear, lack of time and means, change, gender role and family. Personal borders can stop us from developing our full potential.  Communities can also create social, psychological, emotional and ethical borders. Crossing them can bring about positive changes, on an individual or societal level. For instance, the #MeToo movement empowered women to break down barriers of silence about sexual harassment.

The exhibiting fibre artists include Peta Llyod, Wilma Simmons, Cathy Jack Coupland, Margaret Adams, Anne Kempton, Jenny Broughton, Lois Parish Evans, Nanette Blachin and Jenny Florey. They have responded in diverse and creative ways to the challenge of breaking their personal borders.

Crossing Borders exhibition runs from 3 to 28 October. Jette Clover will open the show from 6 to 8pm on Thursday 4 September

Text becomes art in Linguistic Marks – a new joint exhibition.

Two internationally renowned artists, Els van Baarle and Jette Clover, unite for their first Australian exhibition at Newcastle’s Timeless Textiles Gallery in November. Their Linguistic Marks exhibition combines the diverse styles of the two highly-skilled artists around the common theme they share – a love of text and writing. 

Textile artist/teacher from the Netherlands, van Baarle, teaches surface design classes all over the world. Her work, widely published and collected, has won many awards and prizes. Her large scale art-cloth pieces are inspired by ancient history and traces of the past.  

“I love the slow process of using wax and dye many times, to recreate the wear and tear of time,” she said. “The result is a wonderful cloth with a wealth of colour and depth.” 

 Van Baarle’s work brings together tradition and innovation. Text plays an important part. 

 Clover was born in Copenhagen but lived and worked in the US and the Netherlands before settling in Antwerp, Belgium. Educated in journalism and art history, her career includes working on a daily newspaper in Copenhagen and running an art gallery in Los Angeles. She was curator at the Dutch Textile Museum for over 10 years, where she organised the first European Art Quilt exhibition in 1997. Working as a studio artist since 1998, Clover has exhibited widely in USA, Europe and Asia.  

“I was a journalist before I became an artist, which is why almost all my art work contains pieces of text,” Clover said. “I am inspired by mark–making both in the form of handwriting and the layered and fragmented words and letters in the urban landscape – faded signs, tattered posters, flashy advertisements and bold graffiti.” 

 Both artists share a love of old books and documents. They are curious about what survives or endures the passage of time. Text as image, text as a vehicle for meaning and the tactile nature of embroidered signs and symbols are all central elements of their work. 

 Van Baarle’s pieces explode with vibrant colour, while Clover keeps a more subdued palette of white, grey and black. Their pieces are often stitched by hand, before or after painting and printing, to create visual marks of time and a textural quality.