SLACK, refers to the looseness between taut stitches, alternating between moments of tension and relief. This is a project where fields of expanded painting and craft practices collide, to create works that occupy a hybrid space between painting and textile. Using found fabrics such as bedsheets, curtains and pillowcases, traditional craft techniques such as Smocking, merge with staining techniques that use spices, fruits, vegetables, and synthetic pigments. Examining the relationship between home and the studio, the domestic acts of chopping, boiling, soaking, rinsing, and hanging out to dry become a part of the making process. Adopting these labour-intensive processes, time slows down, in the numerous repeated gestures across every smocked surface, where time is encapsulated in every stitch.
By using found materials, I investigate how textiles hold memories of past lives, bodies, and experiences, in every crease, stain, and fold. These materials have the power to evoke a presence of moments, people, and bodies within each work, which seek to resonate with the individual and collective memories of the viewer. Through these material investigations, my practice seeks to reveal the spillages, intimacies, and complexities of textiles, where the unpredictable nature of these materials is revealed, in the way they fold, drape, and absorb pigment.
instagram: @hannahhall.art