Ann Clarke Exibition
This work is about time, aging and empathy; and, It is also about how it is made.
My current work can be seen as being about the life around books, or the life of books themselves. Notes and sketches that become books - as found in archives; notes taken from books - study notes; as well as meaningful artifacts left in books - most often having been used as a bookmark.
I also source broader ideas of books, as found in reference materials, like handwritten lists, date books, timetables and old newspapers.
I work exclusively in textiles, which embody the history of the home, and domestic space.
Specifically I am making rugs, quite simply that on which we stand, ~ they also define a space one can be in.
These constructs provide frameworks, around which each piece is built.
For eight years, I lived at an intersection where my present life met with caring for my aging old mother, where all roads wind back through the past. The pieces incorporate images and text in layers, that sometimes overlap each other. This work reflects how I processed my mother’s disease - it’s hard and complicated.
Betty remained physically robust, but her mind was ravaged by dementia. For her, shifting shards of her life stuck and unstuck, folded and reformed resulting in reconstructed narratives that both affirmed and challenged my understandings. The depth of the work coming from the dark parts. Revealing how deeply entrenched fear and loathing can be, aspects of these qualities lived beyond, her ability to know, if her children were even alive.
The luxury of personal battles with her having ended, hearing a century of experiences randomly revealed and concealed and revealed,
As her mind collapsed, I was awakened, by how deeply my heritage is on the wrong side of history, and indicted by my own privilege.
I am finding my way in the work itself, and often feel that I am dragging my heart forward.
