My work has always involved textiles. I began my art practice in the darkrooms of photography, but I often came back to textiles to expose my images on, with either cyanotype or daguerreotype processes. I love way textiles can be manipulated so quickly and how each piece of fabric can have a different feel and weight. I prefer to use old materials with an inherent history that I can repurpose and reinterpret, usually linen, cotton, silk and other natural fibers. My work has increasingly become about texture, an overload of visual complexity and the introduction of hard materials into the soft sculpture medium. Almost anything can be stitched into a piece and so far the inclusion of brass, bronze and copper as small components of the finished work has opened the boundaries of where my practice can go. I use stitches and beads and other things to ‘draw’ and make patterns on each work; I love the detail and the investment in each slow stitch it takes to reveal the final piece.Wangaratta Art Gallery CollectionA black, golden, white, and silver handsewn protection totem encased in a glass dome case.gillian bencke, textile