Keywords: australia, knitting, lake grace, tania spencer, western australia, galvanised, sculpture, spinning ginny, wire

Intersect 2011

Tania Spencer

Dimensions

1000 x 1000 x 700 mm

Materials

Sculpture: knitted galvanised wire using a spinning ginny, fencing tools, pliers and bolt cutters, tools like coilers or hand bending jigs, made from dowels or fence posts. The wire is hand bent around the jig and then woven together.

Artist statement

‘My present work is expressed with textile techniques and draws on my family and rural heritage for materials and process. Physically, the works take the form of large-scale knitted installations in fencing wire made with tools from the farm shed. The transparency of the structures alludes to societal issues that have real, imagined or shifting boundaries, like belief systems, social conditioning, cultural differences and ecological extinction. These boundaries are mostly unseen, but the effects are tangible.

How we exist within our personal space, in relation to each other and the greater environment and our perceptions of this existence, are core themes of my practice. This work is the first in a series that unites the environmental and social aspects within the same work, with the interlacing of the natural form of the pine cone and the ring being the signifier of the interconnectedness of people. The merging of these two forms is the essence of existence.’

Behind the scenes

Love Lace Unveiled