Philippa Renshaw
Reproducing pattern from my personal archive., 2021
Secondhand fabric, cotton thread, Janome machine sewing. 45 x 74 inches
Philippa Renshaw
Relief printing from my personal linoleum archive., 2021
Lino printing on various mixed paper, embossing, hand embroidery, machine sewing, ink painting. Various sizes.
This work is printed using a large collection as well as some new linoleum carved blocks. Working within the moment and across many artworks at the same time this work layers pattern, imprints and colour together. I choose to reuse works keep them alive, allowing them to be reworked and purposed over and over. Pushing against pressures to keep creating new, bigger, better, I want the things I make to resurface continuously throughout new works and want to allow the patterns each to evolve. Throughout I’m considering individuality and repetition. What does it mean to have something that’s hard to recreate exactly? Does it change our relationship to the hand process?
Philippa Renshaw
De/Re-Constructing City Patterns., 2023
Secondhand fabric, HeatNBond, Sewing Thread, Janome Sewing Machine, Olfa Rotary Cutter, Self Cutting Mat, Sewing Scissors. 12ft wide x 14ft length
This piece a new iteration of making sense of the patterns around me is a 2 sided piece with cut outs to cast shadows onto the wall behind when hung from the ceiling and away from the wall. Created from 3 different 4ft width hangings to create a large piece working through colour gradients. This piece explores labour, time, love, craft, intuition, patience, hate, uncertainty, change, technology, balance, imbalance, chaos, clarity, consumption, value, appreciation, mapping, abstraction, urban development, happiness, sadness, organisation, confusion. Considering textile / fashion consumption, AI technologies and their influence on art, design, craft and the removal of the hand from items.
Philippa Renshaw
Stitch and Wonder with Ceramics., 2021
Obsidian clay, plywood shapes, embroidery thread, wire basket, Obsidian ceramics, Secondhand rope / Embroidery thread. Various Sizes
Philippa Renshaw
Machine Stitched Reproduction of Collaging my Urban Observation., 2022
Secondhand fabric, Cotton thread, Janome sewing machine. Each 26x56 inches
This work is apart of a collect where I have abstracted city scenes into 6 surface pattern artworks and have remade them across different hand crafts, such as textiles, paper collage, ceramics, as well as digitally. This collection of 6 is recreated using secondhand fabric and appliqué machine sewing. To create a vibrant layered side to the front and then a more simple machine stitched outline side, which contrast each other. Throughout this work I’m thinking about repetition, shape, form and what it is to hang a banner.
Philippa Renshaw
Focusing on the mundane pleasures., 2022
Secondhand fabric, wire, lino and screen printed fabric, machine sewing, appliqué. 7ft x 5.5ft
This piece is made from a few different works recycled and joined together to create something new. The lino printing fabric comes from freehand lino carving, where I don’t pre draw and just allow myself to work freely in the moment carving from photos, memory and imagination. I choose for the fabric to be printed with a gradient to show my hand and labour within the work. This has been been overlayed and disrupted by lines of coloured fabric stitched between and block abstract appliqué shapes machine stitched over the top. There’s a sense of organisation and structure upon initial glance at the piece, however once you look a bit more you notice the unevenness, disorganisation and chaos in the piece. Much like our urban environments when we look a little deeper and into the mundane. This piece adds another element with refined cut shapes casting shadows onto the wall behind adding another layer.
Philippa Renshaw
Making sense of the patterns around me., 2022
Secondhand Fabric, HeatnBond, Cotton Thread, Time, Patience, Energy, Love. 5.5ft x 14ft
This piece is a large double sided textile hanging along with a theirs additional pattern created by shadows on the whit wall behind. The hanging is made using only secondhand fabrics to avoid over consumption which the textile industry faces everyday. Each fabric piece has been cared for from start to finish, from initially finding, washing, drying, ironing, cutting to finally machine piecing together. I have chosen to not use a backstitch at all and leave threads hanging so that over time the piece can unravel and fray from use / storage. The piece is really a labour of love and time for me to not only consider labour, consumption, but also the environment I live within. The shapes come from my surface pattern archive, as well as drawings from my daily observations of mundane patterns / shapes that can be noticed between buildings and the hyper-growth San Francisco is facing with new new areas wipes of any individuality. Botanical forms are a constant to me beyond hyper change.
Philippa Renshaw
‘75 Luxury gifts for women that are soo worth the $$$, cosmopolitan.com’, 2022
Made using Secondhand fabrics, HeatNBond, Ceramic & Cotton Thread. 10ft x 5ft
This 4 sided textile installation is a commentary on mass-consumerism, capitalism, marketing and effects of peer pressure to conform and show emotion to others through spending. The abstract shapes are based upon a list of 75 luxury gifts decided upon by Cosmopolitan magazine USA with photos that you should buy a friend to show them that you like them through material objects. I have created a surface pattern using abstract forms of these shapes and have placed lines between as pathways joining the objects together to create a map shape. The ceramic objects placed around the hanging are pulled from the abstract shapes and represent objects frozen as organic forms. The article may seem trivial, yet it’s posts like these on social media, magazines or by companies that are moulding us continually to keep buying more and more. How can we break away from this cycle?
Philippa Renshaw
Stitch and Wonder #3, 2021
Recycled denim, Janome machine sewing, Embroidery thread, Secondhand rope and cord, time, patience, peace, play. 44 x 24 inches
Piece is created by initially piecing secondhand denim that I’ve accumulated, before freehand hand sewing around the piece, changing colour whenever the current embroidery thread ran out. Throughout the journey around the piece I wrap and encase off-cut plywood shapes left over and repurposed from older works and wrap found pieces of cord that would often be thrown away due to size. The hand sewn pattern is created in the moment and moves around the full size of the fabric wrapping, weaving up and down, avoiding crossing lines wherever possible. The intention behind this piece was to find some moments of peace and clarity of modern life, allowing myself time each day to live in the moment and create directly with my hands.
