Established in 2016, the Textile Palette Exhibition celebrates the artistic contribution made within the visual arts field by stitching artists, sculptors and costumiers, highlighting the growing array of individual techniques and creative ideas that are emerging. The theme for the 2024 Textile Palette Exhibition is Distortion, the evolution of body enhancement, aiming to explore how artists perspectives challenge or accept dominant narratives regarding human physiology and body image.

My entry ‘Mirror, mirror’ is a free-standing sculpture offering a satirical caricature of the type of body enhancement that tips over into grotesque distortion. I continue exploring embodied female experience in layers of knitted wire and visceral colour, but have added an unsettling element of surrealism by juxtaposing unlikely materials and techniques. While the out-sized lips are carefully shaped stitch by stitch in fine-gauged wire, the ghostly mask-like face is rendered roughly in torn, denatured muslin. The reverse side has a gentler but nonetheless disturbing demeanor and this ‘janus’ duality hints at the contradictions that haunt us when we try too hard to present our best face to the world.

In collaboration with The Warehouse Clunes of the Hepburn Shire Council, this is a fully accessible exhibition providing a regional space for artists to exhibit and promote their work. For more details: www.textilepaletteexhibition.org