Opening Night:

The exhibition opening will take place on Tuesday 8th February and will be held over two sessions in order to comply with Covid safety:

4.45-5.45pm or 6-7pm.

RSVP for one of these two sessions (numbers are limited) by emailing gallery@fortyfivedownstairs.com.

Stitching Change brings together the work of contemporary Victorian textile artists and invited submissions reflecting the wide range of works related to the medium. Stitching Change is an exhibition highlighting the abundance of textile artists in Victoria and showcases the progressive art form of textiles including work that explores the relationship of textiles to other art disciplines.

This inaugural exhibition is part of the Craft Contemporary Festival held in October 2021.

Two of Kathy’s pieces will be represented in this exhibition. Her life-size knitted wire woman, “Athena” is described in the artist statement below:

The discoveries of knitting wire carried me along, stitch by stitch, through the long 2020 lockdowns. The fabric I was weaving was made of metal yet was mostly space, it both reflected and absorbed light, it was 2-dimensional but wanted to move. It was a chameleon: the looped patterns suggested by turn a rose window, a curtain, a shroud, armour. Finally, a strong female presence emerged, larger than life, a shadow at my shoulder to give me strategy, wisdom, and weaving: my Athena.

Her “Salpinx Collection” consists of nine smaller wire-knitting pieces, and sits within the age-old tradition of stitching, most commonly performed by women.

Kathy says:

For me, combining lacy knitting with the resistance and toughness of wire mirrors the tensions and contradictions of female experience. Here my subject is the female reproductive organs, re-imagined, and the hidden ‘women’s troubles’ they hold.