Peter Sacks Migrations at Malborough Fine Art

Outpost 2 ( detail)

 I too had a surge of excitement when I read Olga's blogpost on the work of Peter Sacks. I managed to  fit in a visit to Malborough Fine Art last Wednesday ( press release here) and   was blown away by the work - both the overall scale and composition and the details  which you can only really appreciate seeing in the flesh. I spent a long time making notes and scribbles about techniques and combinations of materials in my sketchbook  some of which I've noted below.  When  I  came to buy the excellent catalogue ( which you can see online here) , I got it for free as they didn't have change and striking up a conversation with  one of the desk staff and enthusing over the use of old textiles, he asked for more details about my work and looked  up my website. He   instantly recognised the breakwaters which inspired my piece as being  between Reculver and Minnis Bay ! And Maggi Hambling was just leaving the gallery.  A fabulous inspiring morning  with a lot of food for thought and experiments with materials to try.   

Report from the besieged city I 

-Typewritten sentences and words on cotton - visual element as well as poetry 

-mainly white/cream with dark shapes ( trees? fire?) , bits of map 

-thin fabrics painted over texture of doilies and crochet 

- ghost textures 

Outpost 4
 

- Pleated fabrics, old hexagon patchwork 

-exposed painted corrugated cardboard

-hessian with numbers on, African strip cloth , contrast with patterned prints

-underlying canvas shows through

-matt medium over everything as glue and sealant?  

- marks in ink/paint covered over, bleeding through white overlayers 

Outpost 3 

- Layers and traces: thin muslins and laces over crochet doilies  and embroideries ( texture showing through) 

- bright cloths beneath, relation of patterns   change with overlays

- wrinkles and folds add further dimension 

Outpost 1

- folds of fabric (using both sides)

- 3d edges made using cuff with embroidery within , like a walled garden

- typed words: 'perfection such indeed laughter' 

- red marks along edge of lace ( fabric pressed onto it then removed to leave stain?) 

Quickening 7 (and detail)

- embroidered lines of wood with layers over 

-jeans pocket

-painting extended beyond lace 

-frottage , then fabric laid over hessian 

- sense of movement through patterns of fabric used 

Quickening 17

-Mainly lace ( machine , hand and crochet) with embroideries, limited palette 

-lace laid over African fabrics , pattern showing through layers. 

-lace laid over partially painted corregated cardboard

Township 13

- Smaller canvas placed over large one gives sense of space 

- layers peeled back to reveal what's underneath 

Township 12

- Very large scale prints  combined with parts of old patchwork log cabin quilt

- dense layering of lace over lace 

- linear elements of Kuba and strip cloths  contrast with bold patterns.

-  coarse weaves v, delicacy of fine laces 

False Bay 4 

- work on paper rather than canvas- different qualities , more delicate yet rawer
- torn strips of fabric, layered papers as well as fabrics
-twisted lace
-typed words on different fabrics ( edges of doilies, placemats)
-lines of words twisted, don't line up straight, placed in varying directions, changes meaning 

Visitation 1 - Noah ( detail ) 

This detail from a piece of work not in the exhibition but on  his website and the series ' Farewell to an idea' sum up some of the techniques  I'm going to try first with painted corrugated cardboard and layers of lace and textiles. I also want to explore the idea of text more, something I started to look at in collage course. Most of all I want to return to excavating the fabrics in my old 'boro' quilts.

The essay in the catalogue by poetry editor Paul Keegan   was thought provoking -  only a bit of 'artspeak' , striking a balance between  describing  the artists background and materials used and the meanings they convey.

"The songlines of fabric follow invisible as well as visible pathways. The sedimentary overlayering implies both losing and finding . What is inaccessible is preserved, the act of layering is a restitution"

"The printed voice is subject to transformation: lines become pattern, are stretched and slurred, they drift or drizzle, pulled downwards by the linen. Words fail us when we start to think of language as vertical , graphic rather than lexical. His use of corrugated cardboard, often overpainted with a thin wash, is a parody of print whose lines of text on closer inspection are blank. "

"Found fabrics, found figuration, found colours, found words, found expression . Here constructed out of elsewheres "