New Year exhibition visits

So, the kids are back and school and Uni has not yet re-opened and I decided to kick start the year with some exhibition visits.

Customs House - Mandy Pattulo

Patullo is a textile artist based in Northumberland.

I loved both her work and the idea behind it. Pattulo had come across a diary written by her Grandmother and sewed her Grandmother's diary entries into the worn cloth. This was a beautiful and evocative way of working and exhibition. It was an inspiring idea of how to transform memories into art.

The Baltic Mill, Monica Bonvicini

This exhibition really made me consider the power of art to make people feel emotions or to feel challenged, regardless of whether you 'like' the art or not.

This exhibition opens with framed questionnaires answered by people who work on building sites and asks questions about if this type of work is a man's job.

Entering the 'site' makes the viewer feel slightly uncomfortable in the surroundings and to question a sense of belonging (or indeed not belonging).

I think that Bonvicini has achieved this not only with her installations but by creating a place that you have to physically enter into.

I have included some sewn image of tools which cross the boundary between what is stereo-typically thought of as male or female.

#Exhibition