Kathryn Sadgrove / Visual Arts

Level 6 Visual Arts Student. University of Salford. Fibre Artist. Workshop leader. KathrynSadgrove.com facebook.com/kathrynsadgroveart

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Now that my main focus is on the completion of my degree show, i’ve started to look at the little extras that I made note of at last year’s degree show. I found the exhibitions with business cards really helpful, as I was able to refer back to them easily with an image and artist details. 

After testing a few different ideas, I settled with the final design. I like the uninterrupted image on the front, and the details on the back, for a cleaner and more professional card. Although I really liked the design with the “Underwire” work on, I felt it would be more appropriate to involve a photograph of the work that is on display at my show. 

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Top: I have been working a lot with female underwear and the way that women are sexualised from a young age. I embroidered and decorated padding taken out of a bra, to show the decoration that bras are for all ages. As an adult, viewing pretty underwear and sexualising it through choice is not an issue, but when thickly padded bras and adult underwear is marketed towards young teenagers, that’s when it become a problem. This is a half finished piece, I would like to continue working on it, embellishing it further with decorative laces and embroidery. 

Bottom: I rarely plan my composition when i’m embroidering abstract paintings, as I like the look of them when they are worked as spontaneously as possible. However, it is always helpful to set out a base colour palette to work in. It is easy to add in extra bits of colour when needed, but having that safety net of a set colour scheme makes for a much more successful piece of work. 

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This is how i pick out composition ideas for embroideries from my larger paintings.

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And.... I have handed in all of my work over 5 hours before the deadline! Had to run into town to pick up some extra sleeves for my portfolio, as the ones that I ordered were not delivered on time. I handed in early so that I could come back and update this blog one last time with all of the work that I couldn’t print off. I ran out of ink last night and didn’t have time to buy any more.

This has been such a successful semester and I’m very proud of the work that I have produced, however it can be disheartening to see that the volume of work is not as big as other students. It’s easy to forget that my intricate, small scale works can take as much time and effort as large paintings by other people, but for the first time, I have created a body of work that I am excited by, and that I will have interest in continuing outside of Uni and my degree.

I’m glad that it has tied together so well at the end, I feel like I am leaving University with a fresh new view of art.

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I still have 2 more pieces of embroidery to finish before the degree show, so I have not submitted the physical version of this finished piece. I’ve kept it with me so that I can more easily replicate the stitches made. In some of the embroideries that I have submitted, I had planned the composition. Due to this, I ended up using longer stitches and larger blocks of colour. I think that this takes away from the painting like appearance, so I am using this one to influence my final 2 pieces. The short stitches, spontaneously placed, have a more interesting appearance and more closely resemble brush strokes in a painting. 

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I have been revisiting last semesters work and taking it further. In discussions with the technicians and tutors, we’ve talked about taking my work further away from being a typical rug, and more towards a piece of art.

I’ve been looking for places around the studios in which i can display them on multiple surfaces. Sections have been removed from the original piece and sewn together to change the shape and tension of it, which makes it fit into corners and spaces more easily. 

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This looks like i’ve just thrown it into the current space for my exhibition, but I could not put it up properly as it would damage the clean walls. There are a series of nets in my sketchbook pile that show how we worked out out to fit this into a corner properly. 

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Willem de Kooning

 Villa Borghese, 1960

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Jean-Charles Millepied.

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Sneak peak at a few of the embroideries that will be on show at my degree exhibition in a couple of weeks!

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This was a slightly too adventurous attempt at creating a soft sculpture out of a piece of work from last semester. Since it was all white, I thought it would be a perfect piece to showcase the textures on the back as well as show the depth and shadows caught inside.

Magdalena Kleszynska was the inspiration for this idea. Her works look like geodes, yet despite the hard shell, each sculpture has a soft inside.

I wanted with this to sew together the sculpture in a similar way, so that the textured outside could be painted, and that there would be multiple openings to look inside and inspect the fibres in the shadows.

Unfortunately, this was yet another piece that must be put on hold due to sickness. The strength in my arms and hands is not enough to push a needle through such heavily adorned and latexed material.

A few other quick experiments with my gun tufted work folded in on itself. I chose not to ppersue this further because I wanted to use this piece as a soft sculpture in my degree show. 

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Tiny compositions taken from a large scale painting. Looking at brush strokes and texture in paint for inspiration with fabrics.

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Although my work is predominantly fibre based, I have taken a lot of inspiration this semester from abstract paintings. Within my embroidery, I am trying to recreate the gestural and quick mark making, something that is difficult with such a slow and laborious way of working. Though my practice is careful and more time is spent making small marks, I have been inspired by the textures and the brush marks that are left to make up the composition.

I’ve shared a few of my favourites, artists that I refer back to often when looking in depth and brush strokes and texture, as well as inspiration for colour palettes.

This is a fairly recent piece where I considered how painting is framed. Traditional paintings are often framed in art galleries, yet abstract are not and so the gestural marks are not contained within a restricted area. I used the frame to show the restriction of women and femininity in what should be a field of study that is open and free. 

I also wanted to mix up the embroidered paintings with actual paintings, but still with the same base of fabric to create a bond between the 2 ways of working.

This series of 2 “alternative paintings” explores and confronts sexual violence towards women. My work looks at the representation of women in society, and in this series, rape culture and victim blaming. Women are doubted and interrogated on the subjects of sexual assault and violence. In a time that a victim must be supported and comforted, society is not built in their favour.

A large number of students become victims of harassment and assault, so I used shirts that were once part of outfits worn at big student social events.

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Howard Hodgkin, ‘Storm Cloud,’ 2014, Jonathan Novak Contemporary Art

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Hans Hofmann, ‘Serenada,’ 1961, Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe

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Terri Brooks.

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Photo by MMAM, Minnesota Marine Art Museum “The Hand of the River” Works by Moira Bateman and Leo Smith III. Exhibit runs April 29 - August 21, 2016. Winona, Minnesota. — at Minnesota Marine Art Museum.

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Stitchwork, Michelle Kingdom