Artist Index

27.3.18

Degrees of Refinement - opening Friday 6 April 6-8pm

Degrees of Refinement - Clothing as Art, Art from Clothing shows the work of  Linden Braye, Rachel Buckeridge, Lesley Giovanelli, Anne Graham, Pam Kleemann and  Eva Simmons.

open Friday – Sunday 11am-5pm,  7 - 15 April

A group of sculptors, who incorporate clothing and textiles into their art works, will come together to create a highly tactile exhibition with colourful installations, freestanding sculptures and wall works. Clothing can represent the body but also signify cultural attitudes and personal beliefs. Degrees of Refinement is a term coined by Christina Murdoch Mills* referring to signs of process which impact on how viewers experience the work, their sensory experience and understanding of it. The process visible in the clothes, the fabrics and the works themselves ranges from rough, crude and raw to smooth and highly finished. 

Individual identities emerge in some of these works.  Anne Graham felts the hair of her friend’s dog. Items of clothing, given by friends, become rich icons in the centre of Lesley Giovanelli’s wall of colour, whilst Pam Kleemann decorates a template based on the graduation dress of the mother of Adrienne Wheeler, an African-American artist. For Eva Simmons it’s a more personal journey, using embroidery and construction to explore her own sensuality and sexuality.

Alternatively, for Rachel Buckeridge and Linden Braye, the collecting of discarded objects, old fabric and clothing offers some distance from a particular owner. Rachel uses old beach towels to create a fictive life for a folk character in one  of Karen Dalten's songs whilst Linden’s reclamation of fur coats and damaged carpets humorously resurrects the forgotten past.

Throughout this exhibition the multiplicity of materials- natural, synthetic, animal and plant as well as the many techniques used, work to create a highly textured and engaging experience.


*Christina Murdoch Mills in Materiality as the Basis for the Aesthetic Experience in Contemporary Art




























Eva Simmons



Linden Braye

Lesley Giovanelli

Rachel Buckeridge

Pam Kleemann

Anne Graham