Open body 2022 silk, canvas, leather, rope, knitting, wool, thread, wood, paint
9 April – 7 May
Siân Torrington (she/her) is a Wellington-based artist whose practice reflects her overlapping areas of interest and formal study: fine arts, philosophy and textiles. Her three dimensional works quite literally thread together everyday materials, found objects, scraps, fabric to create highly tactile and colourful assemblages.
These organic, playful and vaguely disturbing constructions channel early Louise Bourgeois and Eva Hesse and evoke the more current work of Joanna Vasconcelos and they continue to challenge and complicate the boundaries between art, craft and domestic labour.
Her paintings, more like drawings on a collision course with colour and dimension, are equally bold, colourful and full of energy.
Install shot with Open Body in foreground
In an essay accompanying this exhibition, Wellington academic Alice Tapenden, describes a visit to Torrington’s studio as follows:
What happens in Siân’s studio is for her, and her alone. In this cave she mines experiences. Making can be a battle. She tries to make it easier; she has recently allowed herself to use a sewing machine rather than labouring for hours by hand. She needs to trust the process; that what she needs will come; that the works will reveal themselves as what they want to be. What you see here is what she has brought back for us. But she cannot tell us how to feel or what to think: Siân’s call is to bring yourself. What is it, you wonder. Is it this? The only answer can be yes.
The exhibition includes works which do not appear on the website. Please contact us for a complete list of works.