Romney to Hornsey: Cloth and Clay
April 2018
Exhibited at Ply Gallery, Hornsey Town Hall.
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Susan Jane Dunford is a jewellery designer and box maker whose practice is concerned with the visual language of historical architecture and its significance as an expression of human ideals and drives. Her current line of research explores the relationship between architecture and textiles as cultural signifiers of the basic human drive to protect the body, and as expressions of human ideals that transcend the corporeal into the mysterious. Drawing on the materiality of vernacular architecture, she is using the literal stuff of the earth (clay, slate, woven plant/animal fibres) to make wearable articles that attempt a transformative effect on the wearer.
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Installation view. Cotton twill staircase ground sheet, South Downs wool, 2-ply cotton and linen thread, terracotta, recycled roof slate.
Detail. Cotton twill staircase ground sheet, South Downs wool, 2-ply cotton and linen thread, terracotta, recycled roof slate.
Production detail. South Downs wool, 2-ply cotton and linen thread, Spear's hand loom.
Installation view. Cotton twill staircase ground sheet, South Downs wool, 2-ply cotton and linen thread, terracotta, recycled roof slate.