Middle Distance is part of an ongoing project that uses the visual language of architecture and tapestry processes to create jarring spatial experiences. Contrary to its dense materiality and clear-cut linear construction this work appears unstable and in flux. The focus of the viewers’ eye is bucked from point to point and forced to soften in much the same way that one stares into space, disengaged with one’s immediate surroundings. In the end, as Mark Wigley says, “What is experienced is the atmosphere, not the object as such.”1 1. Mark Wigley, The Atmosphere of Architecture

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection. Donated by Isabel Dunstan.

A small black and white cotton tapestry that depicts various styled lines to form a spatial design.

britt salt, tapestry, textile

In 2019 Peoples undertook a residency at the Tuggeranong Arts Centre, Canberra. The original proposal was to explore the suburban gardens. However, it was the man-made lake with a different bloom, blue-green algae that held her attention. The still waters of the lake in the early mornings are tranquil. Becoming more familiar with the Lake, details caught Peoples’ eye. However, she realised the only interaction by humans with the Lake were two men who motored a small boat to the centre of the Lake, a hint as to the connection between tranquility and blue/green algae.

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection. Donated by June Brown.

A small embroidery using a colour palette of green, orange, blue and brown depicting a scene of Lake Tuggeranong mounted into a purple spectacle case.

sharon peoples, textile, embroidery, lake tuggeranong, landscape

“Between the devil and the deep blue sea!” is a special work to me for different reasons. It was my first experience ever working with textile, and it was my first major artwork that I made and exhibited in Australia. I moved to Australia in 2011 and lived in Perth for 5 years before I moved to Melbourne in 2016. I didn’t have a chance to make many artworks when I was living in Perth and it was mainly because I needed to work full time in order to afford the living costs. Melbourne was totally different though. I moved to Melbourne after I was awarded Australian Postgraduate Award (APA) to study my PhD at RMIT University. This was a fantastic opportunity for me, not only because it helped me financially, but also because it gave me the opportunity to develop my practice and research experience. Being new in Australia and Melbourne though, I needed to familiarise myself with the art community in Australia and find ways that I can introduce myself and present my art. I knew that exhibiting in Australia will be challenging and I thought I can start with looking for opportunities like group shows and awards. The Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award was the very first one that I applied for and it was definitely a great starting point for me. It gave me the confidence to look for other opportunities and that my decision for working with the material and methods that I had no previous working experience with, was a right one. Between the devil and the deep blue sea! is about a dilemma. A dilemma where on one side there is all the memories of the past, home, family, and friends. Everything that was once a life and now is only a memory. There is the threat of death, terrorism and violence and there is no hope for a better future. On the other side, there is a better chance for staying alive, but there is nothing clear about the future. Where you go and what you will be called; A terrorist? Or someone that is there to take the jobs and money!? We are watching the news and seeing tragic accidents happening all over the world every day, but what makes us indifferent to the suffering of others was something that I became interested to learn more about it. From the beginning of my project, I was interested in discovering more about the notion of indifference and that came from my own position as an observer. I am an Iranian living in Australia. On the one hand, I am observing wars and conflicts in the Middle-East from a distance and on the other hand, from not much a distance! I am living in Australia with a great distance from the Middle-East in terms of the geographical distance and the differences in socio-political situations. On the other hand, and despite Iran’s current safe situation, there is no guarantee for a stable peace in the future. Being not here nor there, I am an observer who won’t be in peace in peaceful Australia, and can’t feel the depth of the pain for people living in war-torn countries such as Syria and Iraq. The indifference phenomena can be studied from different disciplines, however, there can not be a simple and unique explanation for its cause. Regardless of different explanations for the causes of the indifference, what I am most interested in is to explore the ways I can show the “indifference” itself. For this, I seek to focus on my simple interpretation of the phenomena, which in my mind is “seeing tragedy, not tragic.” In other words, whether the indifference is caused by information overload, or distance from the sufferer for example, people don’t feel the pain and can’t understand the conditions others in pain are experiencing. Based on this explanation, the focus of my artworks is to depict and highlight the contradiction between the pain and the indifference. In my art practice, I often use colourful and attractive materials in combination with a visual language that reference to the aftermath of tragic events of wars, to provide a symbolic representation of indifference in the form of an artwork. This is my artistic approach in explaining the notion of “indifference”, that can illustrate my ideas around “seeing tragedy, not tragic”. to give voice to my own concerns and position as an Iranian artist, I am interested in utilising visual elements from traditional arts of Persia and the Middle-East. In selecting rugs and fabrics that I use in my artworks, the weaving quality is not my concern. Moving beyond this, I am looking for features which express and underpin concepts such as antiquity, resistance, simplicity, and peace which sit in stark contrast to the terrorising and militant image of Middle Eastern people portrayed by the mainstream media. Nowruz (Persian New Year) 21 March marks the Persian New Year and the first day of spring in Iranian calendar. It’s the time of the year when all Iranians and many other Farsi speaking nationalities (Afghans, Tajiks, etc.) celebrate together. My wife and I are planning a trip to Iran for the new year holidays and it would be our first time to celebrate the new year with family and friends in Iran since 2011. It is believed that Nowruz has a long history of around 3,000 years and is rooted in Zoroastrianism, an ancient Persian religion that predates both Christianity and Islam. Every year Iranians celebrate this very special event at different times and it’s because the exact time of the new year depends on the exact calculation of when the length of the day and the night are equal. There are many things about the Persian new year to be excited about and sitting around the Haft-Seen table (7sin) with family is with no doubt the most exciting one. Haft-Seen is a set of seven symbolic elements beginning with ‘S’ in Farsi that Iranians arrange them together to decorate a table that family sit around and celebrate the beginning of the new year. The most common items found in Haft-seen decoration are: Sabzeh: Wheat, barley, mung bean or lentil sprouts growing in a dish, Samanu: Sweet pudding made from wheat germ, Senjed: Dried Persian olive. Seer: Garlic Seeb: Apple Somāq: Sumac Serkeh: Vinegar Sekkeh: Coin that symbolise health, wealth, abundance, etc.

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection, Acquired with the assistance of Robert Salzer Foundation.

A used Persian Rug that has had a motif of two heads and an explosion hand-stitched onto it.

mohsen meysami, textile, rug

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection

A black and white cross stitched portrait of a woman on a laptop screen.

clare mccracken, cross stitch, portrait, textile

Remembering the White Building, 2017 Clare McCracken As Cambodia rapidly urbanises, it is the urban poor that are forcibly removed from their homes to make way for shiny new apartment towers they cannot afford. In 2014 during a residency at the White Building, a medium-density slum in central Phnom Penh, Clare stitched pocket-sized cross-stitches of the ornate bricks of the building over the top of cross-stitch patterns of Angkor Wat. She gifted these tiny works to the residents she met - something they could take with them as a reminder of their community when it was demolished. In 2017, as the Cambodian government demolished the building, Clare created another series of the works: in memory of a community that had now been destroyed.

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection

A textile artwork that is made up of 4 cross stitch squares with each square a different colour and design.

clare mccracken, cross stitch, textile

The Six Degrees works are hand-spun human hair yarn woven on a 4-shaft table loom with a cotton warp. The names of the people who have donated the hair are written above the weavings. They were traced with graphite carbon paper directly on to mount board. Six Degrees is about the connections between individuals and the groups they are part of, emphasised by the names of the donors of the hair being included above the weavings.

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection. Donated by the artist.

A small weaving made from cotton and human hair mounted on a board marked with the names of the people who donated their hair to be woven.

rodney love, human hair, textile, weaving

The Six Degrees works are hand-spun human hair yarn woven on a 4-shaft table loom with a cotton warp. The names of the people who have donated the hair are written above the weavings. They were traced with graphite carbon paper directly on to mount board. Six Degrees is about the connections between individuals and the groups they are part of, emphasised by the names of the donors of the hair being included above the weavings.

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection. Donated by the Artist.

A small weaving made from cotton and human hair mounted on a board marked with the names of the people who donated their hair to be woven.

rodney love, human hair, textile, weaving

The panels from the I Am Because We Are series are woven from cut-up donated socks. They were woven on a four-shaft floor loom with a cotton warp. The names of the donors have been typed onto polyester ribbons which have been woven in with the socks. It’s possible that the typewriter ink could fade if exposed for long periods to strong light, but the sock material should be fairly stable as they were almost exclusively commercially-produced socks. The wood of the frames has been painted with an acrylic paint, and covered with MDF boards. The fabric is stretched over the frames and secured with staples.

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection. Donated by Artist.

A woven textile work using fabric in shades of black, grey, white, green, and orange.

Caught Fish, PANGASIANODON GIGAS” is a miniature version of the larger tapestry described below and it embodies the same ideas: The giant Mekong Catfish is under threat of extinction due to over-fishing and loss of habitat. It is beleived that the fish used to reach sizes over 3 metres, but the largest recorded catch to date is 2.7 metres – a monster fish caught in Thailand in 2005. As its fame and the mythology surrounding it increases, so does the number of game fishermen keen to land a record catch or earn a sizeable amount of money in the exotic food marketplace. However, the water flow of the river is increasingly more controlled by China, changing the natural habitat of the river. It seems that survival of the great catfish is being left to chance and the fish’s ability to avoid nets, lines and traps in the murky green waters of the Mekong. My exhibition piece is a giant, woven Pangasianodon Gigas – made as a shaped tapestry which will hang the way a fisherman would hold up his catch to display or be photographed as his trophy. The drawing was made from photographs of very large fish I observed in Laos and the detail on the body of the fish is deliberately ambiguous scales/nets. The piece will be woven on cotton seine twine (which was originally made as a string for fish netting) with mixed weft yarns. Artist statement about the work: The final work is an abstraction of fish and nets – an image made with a hand drawn quality suggesting the personal observation that goes with looking and responding with ink on paper. The tapestry technique mimics the original marks to a certain degree but is also very obviously a woven form with its stepped edges and shapes, blending of tones through hachure and broad set of warp and weft.

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection

A small tapestry of a caught fish handwoven using a colour palette of black, grey, and white.

valerie kirk, tapestry, textile, fish

I draw inspiration from the world around me and from particular aspects of life. Previously my work dealt with my experience as a Scottish migrant – looking back and forward, north and south, here and there, between two countries. This ‘in-between-ness’ of the migratory experience, while not unique to me or other Australians, contributes to my sense of being made up of many parts, a kind of fragmentation where certain components come into play at different times. There is an eternal mismatch or sense of being out of place in my world as I am recognized as Scottish in Australia when people hear me speak but in Scotland people comment on my Australian accent. In a wider sense Australia’s history and culture is made up of many examples of people and things brought together without a good likeness or fit. Woven tapestry allows me to combine my interests in textiles and visual art using the tactile qualities of materials in the highly complex woven form. It allows be to create realistic images, but change format, composition and placement to create images which invite the viewer to question. The intricate nature of multiple wefts twined between warps parallels the complexities of life and tapestry’s building /constructed process embodies the advancement of time.

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection

A small tapestry of a tree and its root system handwoven using a colour palette of black, grey, and white.

valerie kirk, tapestry, textile

I draw inspiration from the world around me and from particular aspects of life. Previously my work dealt with my experience as a Scottish migrant – looking back and forward, north and south, here and there, between two countries. This ‘in-between-ness’ of the migratory experience, while not unique to me or other Australians, contributes to my sense of being made up of many parts, a kind of fragmentation where certain components come into play at different times. There is an eternal mismatch or sense of being out of place in my world as I am recognized as Scottish in Australia when people hear me speak but in Scotland people comment on my Australian accent. In a wider sense Australia’s history and culture is made up of many examples of people and things brought together without a good likeness or fit. Woven tapestry allows me to combine my interests in textiles and visual art using the tactile qualities of materials in the highly complex woven form. It allows be to create realistic images, but change format, composition and placement to create images which invite the viewer to question. The intricate nature of multiple wefts twined between warps parallels the complexities of life and tapestry’s building /constructed process embodies the advancement of time.

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection

A small tapestry of roots and leaves handwoven using a colour palette of black, grey, and white.

valerie kirk, textile, tapestry

I draw inspiration from the world around me and from particular aspects of life. Previously my work dealt with my experience as a Scottish migrant – looking back and forward, north and south, here and there, between two countries. This ‘in-between-ness’ of the migratory experience, while not unique to me or other Australians, contributes to my sense of being made up of many parts, a kind of fragmentation where certain components come into play at different times. There is an eternal mismatch or sense of being out of place in my world as I am recognized as Scottish in Australia when people hear me speak but in Scotland people comment on my Australian accent. In a wider sense Australia’s history and culture is made up of many examples of people and things brought together without a good likeness or fit. Woven tapestry allows me to combine my interests in textiles and visual art using the tactile qualities of materials in the highly complex woven form. It allows be to create realistic images, but change format, composition and placement to create images which invite the viewer to question. The intricate nature of multiple wefts twined between warps parallels the complexities of life and tapestry’s building /constructed process embodies the advancement of time.

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection

A small tapestry of a gum leaf and a singe root system handwoven in a colour palette of black, grey, and white.

valerie kirk, tapestry, textile

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection

A textile sculpture of a red book that has a ribbon of woven pages flowing from it.

mandy gunn, textile

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection. Gift of the Artist.

A spherical sculpture made from black inner tubes

mandy gunn, sculpture, recycled

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection

A small maquette tapestry featuring a scalloped design in a colour palette of white, olive, and grey.

tim gresham, weaving, tapestry, textile

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection. Acquired with the assistance of The Robert Salzer Foundation.

A small tapestry featuring dark blue and white rippling lines on a light blue and aqua background.

tim gresham, tapestry, weaving, textile

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection. Acquired with the assistance of The Robert Salzer Foundation.

A small hand-woven tapestry featuring a jagged line pattern in shades of blue on a ochre coloured background.

tim gresham, tapestry, weaving

The genesis of this work was an exploration of materials and sustainability, which led to the use of jute twine as the base material - a humble, sustainable fibre, and an unlikely material for the creation of 3D forms. Machine sewn with a simple zig zag stitch, the work contrasts the most basic of materials and equipment with the creation of beautiful and sophisticated objects. Embedded textures are constructed with a variety of threads, yarns and techniques, allowing the minimal palette to highlight serendipitous interplays of form and texture.

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection

5 twine bowls of various sizes in a colour palette of black and cream.

fiona gavens, textile, twine bowl

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection

A small weaving with a colour palette of black, green, yellow and white.

esmae emerson, weaving, textile

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection

A small weaving with a colour palette of black, reds and oranges.

esmae emerson, weaving, textile

‘Unidentified’ is part of a body of work challenging distinctions between art and craft, looking at the relationship between women and needlework, and through this questioning aspects of the human condition such as the impermanence of life and what we leave behind. This triptych is part of a series of portraits inspired by daguerreotypes. I am interested in capturing a sense of the ephemeral nature of life which is reflected in these images which appear as photographs from a distance but become less and less focussed as you approach until they become just stitches on fabric.

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection

Three separate black and white petit point pixelated portraits.

ying chew, petit point, textile, embroidery

I am interested in the history and practice of weaving and textile production and the growing of cotton in different areas of the world, especially as it relates to my Lancashire, UK heritage. The cotton painting drop cloth has been dyed with Australian native plants and the warp threads exposed by removing the weft showing the simple robust structure of this fabric characteristic of the interlacing of warp and weft in plain weave. This work can be hung or can stand on a plinth or table.

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection. Donated by June Brown.

A textile work that features a piece of cotton drop cloth that has has sections of the warp threads removed and other sections plant dyed brown to create a radial effect.

hilary buckland, textile, plant dyed

When in the desert it is frightening to see a distant fire, even though you may not see the actual flames. As evening approaches the sky reflects anger and colour. The mesa is also reflecting some of the glow . I imagined it had been burnt already and some embers are still aglow in the evening light All fabrics used in this work are cotton commercial fabrics. My stitching has been done to accentuate the red reflection in the sky. Black rayon thread gives a certain sheen to the mesa with a dried grassy foreground. ‘Sky Series’ Changes are constantly taking place in the sky . I love the variety, colour and movement of the sky which are all a direct result of the clouds, sun and time of day. I certainly think about the sky much more when we are on Safari. The sky is a great indicator of the ever changing time of day and weather conditions …... fine and clear, cloudy, sunset, sunrise and storms. The artwork features a simple ‘mesa’ shape against the sky. A mesa is a flat topped hill. Which are part of the Australian Inland. The mesa I have featured is in recognition of Mt Connor in the Northern Territory.

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection

A embroidered textile depiction of an outback landscape scene during a fire featuring a colour palette of pinks, purples, and browns.

june brown, textile, landscape

Stormy skies can be memorable with dark and contrasting colours. They often appear menacing and producing apprehension in the air because of the oncoming weather. Fabrics used in this piece are all commercial. I have endeavoured to make the sky angry with stitches. The mesa has some very dark and ominous craggy rifts. ‘Sky Series’ Changes are constantly taking place in the sky . I love the variety, colour and movement of the sky which are all a direct result of the clouds, sun and time of day. I certainly think about the sky much more when we are on Safari. The sky is a great indicator of the ever changing time of day and weather conditions …... fine and clear, cloudy, sunset, sunrise and storms. The artwork features a simple ‘mesa’ shape against the sky. A mesa is a flat topped hill. Which are part of the Australian Inland. The mesa I have featured is in recognition of Mt Connor in the Northern Territory.

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection

A embroidered textile depiction of an outback landscape scene during a storm featuring a colour palette of blues and browns.

june brown, textile

‘Sky Series’ Changes are constantly taking place in the sky . I love the variety, colour and movement of the sky which are all a direct result of the clouds, sun and time of day. I certainly think about the sky much more when we are on Safari. The sky is a great indicator of the ever changing time of day and weather conditions …... fine and clear, cloudy, sunset, sunrise and storms. The artwork features a simple ‘mesa’ shape against the sky. A mesa is a flat topped hill. Which are part of the Australian Inland. The mesa I have featured is in recognition of Mt Connor in the Northern Territory.

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection

A embroidered textile depiction of an outback landscape scene at sunrise featuring a colout palette of soft pastel blues and pinks, and vibrant reds and oranges.

june brown, landscape, textile

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 Collection

A black, golden, white, and silver handsewn protection totem encased in a glass dome case.

gillian bencke, textile

Making marks with needle and thread across the landscape of life, sometimes treading lightly but often leaving scars. Wandering was inspired by marks left from the eucalyptus leaves on the fabric, a scrap of fabric easily carried, an idle moment to make a few marks with needle and thread. A longer time to stitch becomes a wandering mind, like taking a walk in the bush, deciding on the tracks ahead and reflecting on those already taken.

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection. Donated by June Brown

A rectangular silk piece that has been botanically dyed brown with eucalyptus leaves and then green, blue, and orange cotton threads have been handstitched across the piece to create tracks.

kathy beilby, botanical dying, handstitching, textile

A cast terazzo vase covered in a blue wash with sculpted wires arranged in the vase.

rose wedler, sculpture

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection

A jewellery sculpture featuring a pendant style necklace in a dark wooden hand-carved block stand. The necklace pendant consists of three metal disks and four clusters of red beads.

Milagros is inspired by the Mexican tradition of pinning ‘ex-votos’ or ‘milagros’ onto the robes of Patron Saints when requesting a miracle. Ex-votos or milagros are votive offerings of small metal shapes which represent a visual form of people’s prayers. The central question in this piece is:If the creatures of the river could, which ones would be asking their Patron Saints for a miracle or two? Most of the wetland and river fauna which are depicted in Milagros are listed as endangered or vulnerable and are recorded as belonging to the area of the Ovens River stretching from Wangaratta to the Murray.

Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection

A rectangular sculpture that features a light wood beam with a brown fabric hang from it, with small golden animal pendants attached to the fabric.

rose wedler, sculpture, milagros