| Project Title | Being With |
| Venue | MF Gallery, Ipswich, UK |
| Date | October 2023 |
Being With
Weaving together shared lived
experiences and creating safe space
for discussion and interaction
Woodward and Woodward observe how “bodies are material and bodies matter, especially when things go wrong, but also when things go right” (2009:136). My final major project is an investigation into the imaged body, and contemporary society has had its fair share of things going wrong and right for bodies. As my project has developed to explore embroidery, weaving, textile and abstraction, I have questioned the contemporary perspective of the body in art – particularly that of the non-male, sexualised form. Despite the socially engaged activism as art not coming to fruition for this project deadline, my practise evolves to be more socially and culturally oriented as I delve further into the ideologies behind the male gaze, the imaged body, non-male safety, community and shared experience.
My research questions for this project asked:
How can the making and exhibiting of a series of large scale, mixed media embroideries disrupt the problematic cultural representations of the non-male body? And what can a series of conversations organised around the exhibition of these embroideries reveal about the value of communities of support and ‘being with’ for non-males?
Throughout this course my previously painting based practise has evolved and developed to explore fabric and textile medium. My small-scale figurative embroidered portraits have morphed and grown into large scale abstract fibre paintings (details pictured above), that weave the haptic medium into our ideologies of the body. Experimenting with natural and homemade dyes has encouraged me to consider women as foragers, the feminine associations within ‘making do’ and resourcefulness, and stereotypes surrounding textile work.
I have created a series of large, abstract, mixed media embroidered artworks and presented them at MF Gallery, Ipswich. The works also provided the backdrop and premise for an informal workshop evening, with discussion and an artist’s talk; aiming to contextualise the works and encourage conversations around the shared lived experience of the non-male participants in relation to voyeurism and safety, and simultaneously create a safe space and environment for open dialogue.
felicitybeaumont.com