‘Stay at Home’ (Anne Kelly)

By Anne Kelly

Mixed media embroidered textile collage – Mounted and backed on vintage fabric

100 x 100 cm

Why ‘Stay at Home’

‘Stay at Home’ was completed during the first lockdown in the UK of the COVID19 pandemic. It is a collaged piece in two parts – firstly a central hand stitched panel, with a portrait of myself and my husband from a photo taken just before the ‘stay at home’ order was put in place. The second part of the piece is the border which is a hand and machine stitched and collaged surround, with articles from home and daily life, cocooning us from the world outside. I was inspired to complete the central hand stitched panel by a visit to Anna Torma, a prominent Canadian textile artist. I went to visit her studio in 2018 in Baie Verte, New Brunswick when exhibiting at a gallery nearby. It was a great visit and she was very welcoming – we commiserated over sore fingers (she produces large completely hand stitched panels. I also used some Kantha stitching in the piece and added embroidered fragments from a visit to Gujurat in February 2020. Some of the objects in the border are from a vintage tea towel, gifted to me in Australia.  

About the Artist

Anne collects recycled fabric, paper and ephemera using collage, stitch, photographic and print processes to create mixed media textiles, framed and free hanging. Her inspirations are taken from travel and memory and naive, outsider and folk art. Her heavily embroidered and textural works have been described as ‘small worlds’, with a small scrap or remnant of fabric that can inspire a whole piece. Her four books for Batsford Press reflect her project work in the UK and abroad.