Marie Gnanaraj Sri Lankan, b. 1950

‘Texture Matters’ is a reflection, a purposeful looking back and taking account of a life spent in (re)imagining, and (re)creating textile environments. By laying bare the intersections—between past and present, complete and in-progress, introspection and making—the exhibition becomes an open field for revisiting the practice of weaving, embracing uncertainty, and imagining what comes next.

The journey that is mapped in ‘Texture Matters’ suggests the approach of a retrospective, as well as a living studio, which brings together finished works, previous exhibition pieces, fragments, samples and unfinished experiments, as well as reworked weaves that shed a light into the labour and dynamism of weaving as artistic process. There is a chronology to the work encountered that is informed by my working context. The thought that guides the work, however, operates the same way my memory does. And so, the exhibition loops back and propels forward dwelling on these earlier works and the practice that emerges from working with, and challenging, the simple two pedal loom. I see these works now through new conversations and interpretations. Some have been altered or expanded upon, while others remain deliberately unfinished; they give insight into the different stages of making and an ongoing internal dialogue with texture.