Amsterdam Exhibition: The Garden of Loss and Triumph

My artwork Garden of Tears is on display in the exhibition ‘Garden of Loss and Triumph’ at NDSM Fuse, NDSM-plein 29, WC Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands from 1 - 18 September 2022.

For this exhibition, artists were provided with an A4-sized piece of linen/cotton fabric reclaimed from vintage tablecloths and remnants. The linen was to be used as the foundation for an artwork that is an expression of the challenges, loss and grief we currently face in our everyday lives and also the triumphs, large and small that we create and experience along the way.

For my artwork, I created tear shaped holes in the provided linen. The edges of these holes were hand stitched using cotton thread from my grandmother’s work basket. The holes were then individually filled with seaweed (marine macroalgae) pulp, and the artwork dried and pressed. The images show the front and reverse sides of the artwork.

Garden of Tears alludes to the tears shed by mothers whose sons and daughters have been lost at sea. The seaweeds used to create the different pulps were gathered from around Tasmania’s rocky coastline, where there have been numerous shipping tragedies over the years.

The linen and hand stitching represent the home and a mother’s love, devotion and selfless domestic labour.

The exhibition can be viewed online here.