JIM FORSTER
Embroidery is a slow, contemplative activity, traditionally associated with women in domestic environments creating decorative adornments for clothing, furniture and wall hangings.
My embroideries use words and images to explore the relationship between public and private domains - the spaces between the external world of instructions diagrams and signs and the interior world of thoughts and emotions.
Studied at Cardiff College of Art, The Royal College of Art and Goldsmiths College.
In the 1980’s and 1990’s I used photo sequences with text – loose narratives in film and stills. As an obvious departure from the slick presentation and invisible process of photography I began physically stitching images together. Although this seemed like an unlikely vehicle to explore the use of images and their relationship with words I realised that embroidery has been used almost universally to combine text with images for domestic and public purposes.
Thread and fabric have many paradoxes; they can be used as material for mending and repair but they also unravel and disintegrate; they are used to cover and conceal but are also associated with exposition. They lie somewhere between 2 and 3 dimensions, are difficult to manipulate but are also fragile and disposable.
In 2001 I began making a series of embroideries on men’s undergarments, 24 pairs of White Y-Fronts each with an image of an identifiable object applied to them. Having seen an exhibition of late Medieval clothing in Exeter Cathedral I was fascinated by the survival of the embroidery as well as the decomposition and discoloration of the fabric and thread.
I have long been interested in how information tools - ‘Early Learning Books’ and Instructional Manuals/Signs use visual imagery and words - intended for purely descriptive purposes which often reveal an unintended lyricism. The initial series of embroideries led to the use of other textile objects/surfaces – de-commissioned hospital pillow cases, old table runners and discarded sheeting. Current works combine handstitched and machine methods – detailed pictorial representations alongside texts from public and private sources – a mix of the general and banal with the specific and personal.
Jim Forster
