un/conscious

‘un/conscious’ is a large-scale artwork that features a collection of sixteen brightly coloured tactile canvases, creating a kaleidoscopic wall of colour.

Colour is an entity, a portal, a phenomena that arises through the interplay of light and sight. By itself, light has no colour or brightness, it is a series of pulsing waves of electromagnetic radiation interacting with our neurology in order to create what we see as colour. In a sense we put a little bit of ourselves into each colour as we observe it. So, as you observe this work you will inevitably contribute to the ongoing collection of memories held within each coloured fibre. You will see your own self reflection and those of the community around you woven amongst the endless cotton loops.

The textiles featured are ‘waste’ offcuts that have been donated to the artist by Re/lax Remade, a sustainably focused, Sydney-based fashion label that creates hats out of vintage towels. Each piece of fabric is embedded with the memories of the previous owner, an ode to the generations of families that owned these towels. The act of creating this work integrates these accumulated memories with those of the designers at Re/lax Remade and now incorporates the memories of the artist; leaving us with a complex weaving of memories living in the millions of threads that have been passed through thousands of hands before becoming the work you see today.

The process of creating ‘un/conscious’ took the artist over 6 months and countless pieces of vintage textile offcuts; all while Jamie-Lee was pregnant with her first child and finding herself doing what has long been considered ‘women’s work’. The long and rich history of women working with textiles is more than just earning a living; it has always been an accessible way of expressing memories, emotions and experiences. “The reality is that, unlike oil paints, some form of needle and thread are the art materials that have been most commonly and widely available to women throughout history. They have given us women, and continue to give, the power to decorate ourselves and our interior environments, and document ourselves in that process.” (No Man’s Land by Stanislava Pinchuk)